I, 


e 


Certain  Men  of  Mark 


^tuDies  of  Hibing  Celebrities;* 


BY 


GEORGE   MAKEPEACE  TOWLE. 

1/ 


BOSTON: 

ROBERTS     BROTHERS. 
iS8o. 


Copyright,  1 880, 
By  Roberts  Brothers. 


University  Press  : 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge. 


CONTENTS. 

♦ 

Page 

Gladstone 7 

Bismarck 37 

Gambetta 66 

Beaconsfield 95 

Castelar 124 

Victor  Hugo 154 

John  Bright 183 

Three  Emperors 213 


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CERTAIN    MEN   OF   MARK. 


I. 

GLADSTONE.! 

'T^HE  lobbies  of  the  Lords  and  Commons,  in 
the  Padiament  Palace  at  Westminster,  are 
free  for  every  one  to  enter ;  and  there  it  is  that 
one  may,  any  day  during  the  parliamentary  ses- 
sion, meet  the  statesmen  of  England,  as  it  were, 

1  The  author  having  sent  a  copy  of  this  sketch  to  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, received  from  him  the  following  reply:  — 

"London,  Api-il  21,  '80. 
"Dear  Sir,  —  I  have  now  read  the  article  so  kindly  sent 
me  twice  over,  and  I  congratulate  you  as  an  author  on  a  paper 
of  so  much  ability  and  so  much  discernment. 

"  In  its  praise  it  is  far  too  liberal.  To  only  one  of  the  items 
set  down  on  the  other  side  do  I  take  any  exception.  I  really 
do  not  admit  myself  to  have  been  a  bad  follower.  There  never 
was  any  opposition  between  Lord  Hartington  and  myself  on 
the  Public  Worship  Bill.  On  the  Eastern  Question  I  was  too 
deeply  committed  by  antecedent  action,  as  well  as  by  convic- 
tion, to  be  simply  obedient;  for  which,  however,  on  various 
occasions,  I  made  great  efforts. 

"  I  remain,  dear  sir, 

"  Your  faithful  and  obedient, 

"W.  E.  Gladstone." 


8  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

tete-a-tete.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  eminent 
men  from  a  near  point  of  view,  and  at  moments 
when  they  are  "  off  duty ;  "  and  in  the  lobbies, 
during  the  half  hour  before  the  two  Houses  are 
called  to  order,  the  members  stand  about,  chat 
with  a  friend  here  and  a  constituent  there,  and 
relax,  if  ever,  their  official  dignity  in  social  con- 
verse. 

It  was  in  the  lobby  of  the  Commons  that, 
some  fifteen  years  ago,  I  first  saw  Mr.  Gladstone. 
He  was  then  in  the  full  prime  of  life,  being  about 
fifty-five  years  of  age.  He  had  already  won  a 
degree  of  political  renown  only  less  than  the 
highest.  At  that  time  he  was  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer  in  Lord  Palmerston's  cabinet; 
and,  next  to  Lord  Palmerston,  was  the  most 
distinguished  member  of  the  popular  House. 
He  had  been  a  member  of  parliament  thirty- 
three  years ;  and  his  career  there,  at  least  as  far 
as  reputation  was  concerned,  had  been  a  tri- 
umphal progress,  ever  and  steadily  advancing. 
No  one  doubted  that  at  some  day  not  far  distant 
Mr.  Gladstone  would  be  summoned  to  assume 
the  post  of  Prime  Minister. 

A  glance  sufficed  to  recognize  him.  His  pho- 
tographs  peered    at   the  passer-by  from   every 


GLADSTONE.  9 

bookstore  and  print  shop  in  London;  and  no 
one  could  have  seen  them  without  taking  note 
of  the  very  remarkable,  expressive,  intense  fea- 
tures they  discovered.  But  there  was  something 
about  Mr,  Gladstone  as  he  stood  there,  gravely 
talking  with  two  gentlemen  who  listened  to  him 
with  every  outward  sign  of  respect,  which  the 
photographs  had  not  disclosed.  There  was  a 
certain  plainness,  almost  rusticity,  of  dress  and 
external  appearance;  a  thick-set,  farmer-like 
body,  far  from  graceful ;  a  certain  negligence  of 
attire  and  toilet  and  manner,  and  simple  gravity 
of  bearing,  which  one  had  not  expected  to  see 
in  the  brilliant  and  eloquent  scholar  who  had  so 
often  thrilled  the  House,  and,  through  the  me- 
dium of  the  press,  the  world.  But  after  the 
first  superficial  glance,  when  you  raised  your 
eyes  to  the  face  and  head,  and  observed  the 
features,  you  soon  found  the  man's  character 
reflected  there.  The  not  very  large,  but  brilliant, 
earnest,  burning  eyes ;  the  retreating,  but  nobly 
shaped  forehead ;  the  very  un-English  swarthy 
complexion;  the  firm,  thin  mouth,  to  which 
every  line  lent  new  expressiveness ;  the  square- 
set  jaw,  and  bold  straight  nose;  the  spirit  and 
warmth  that  glowed  in  the  whole  countenance 


10  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

betokened  a  mind  and  soul  alike  lofty,  zealous, 
and  intense. 

Never  once  did  the  slightest  smile  cross  those 
almost  grim  features;  and  the  contrast  between 
this  grimness  of  expression,  and  the  sweet,  sil- 
very voice,  the  tones  of  which  now  and  then 
reached  my  ear,  was  very  striking.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's smiles,  indeed,  are  very  few  and  slight. 
He  has  always  been  too  dead-in-earnest;  and 
dead-in-earnestness  has  stamped  itself  on  his 
face,  as  it  has  throughout  the  record  of  his  pub- 
lic career. 

Not  many  evenings  after,  I  was  fortunate 
enough  to  see  Mr,  Gladstone  on  another  scene, 
and  in  a  new  aspect.  A  great  debate  was  pro- 
ceeding in  the  House  of  Commons,  on  the  usu- 
ally dry  subject  of  Supply.  Mr.  Gladstone  had, 
as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  brought  in  a 
Budget,  some  features  of  which  had  aroused  the 
hostility  of  certain  attacked  interests.  Among 
other  items  he  had  proposed,  for  the  first  time, 
to  tax  the  great  public  charities  of  England. 
Such  institutions  as  Bartholomew  and  Christ's 
Hospitals  had  before  been  exempt  from  taxa- 
tion, as  being  devoted  to  purposes  of  benevo- 
lence.    They  had  now  grown,   however,  to  be 


GLADSTONE.  1 1 

rich  and  powerful  corporations ;  and  Mr.  Glad- 
stone declared  that  they  should  aid  in  support- 
ing the  expenses  of  the  country.  The  proposal 
aroused  great  indignation,  especially  among  the 
established  clergy,  who  to  a  large  extent  con- 
trolled the  great  hospitals. 

On  the  night  in  question,  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
announced  to  speak  in  defence  of  his  policy  of 
taxing  these  charities.  Though  it  seemed  an 
arid  topic,,  giving  little  scope  to  a  rich  imagina- 
tive eloquence  like  his,  it  was  no  easy  matter  to 
secure  a  place  in  the  Stranger's  Gallery.  Every 
corner  and  crevice  of  the  House  w^ere  filled  as 
soon  as  the  doors  were  open.  Members,  even, 
were  forced  to  resort  to  the  galleries,  so  crowded 
were  the  benches  below ;  the  ladies'  gallery  was 
thronged  with  peeresses,  and  the  leaders  of  Lon- 
don society.  The  world  of  London,  at  least, 
knew  that  Mr.  Gladstone  was  one  of  those  rare 
magicians  who  could  make  even  figures  eloquent. 

When  the  orator  rose  from  the  front  govern- 
ment bench,  drew  himself  up,  holding  a  small 
slip  of  paper  in  his  hand,  and  quietly  looked 
around  on  the  multitude  whose  single  gaze  was 
upon  him,  he  seemed  younger  and  more  impos- 
ing than  he  had  done  when  standing  chatting  in 


12  CERTAIN^  MEN  OF  MARK. 

the  lobby.  You  recognized  at  once,  by  his  mere 
expression  and  motion,  that  he  was  already  warm 
and  proud  with  the  ardor  -of  forensic  conflict; 
that  he  loved  this  arena  on  which  he  stood,  and 
that  his  whole  soul  was  in  the  task  before  him. 
In  his  first  few  simple  sentences,  one  already  felt 
the  sweet  and  persuasive  power  of  a  voice  which, 
even  in  his  age,  has  perhaps  no  equal  in  any 
assembly  on  earth.  There  were  the  soul  and 
life  of  intense  earnestness  in  its  very  first  tones, 
as  the  commonplace  opening  of  the  speech  was 
uttered ;  now  subdued,  to  be  sure,  but  soon  to 
burn  out  and  glow  with  all  the  fire  of  the  man's 
warm  intellectual  nature.  The  next  thing  ob- 
served was  the  contrast  between  this  smooth, 
steady  flow  of  words,  this  rising  fluency  of  lan- 
guage, pouring  out  long  and  involved  sentences 
without  a  pause,  a  hitch,  an  instant's  loss  of  the 
right  word,  and  the  halting  and  hesitating  ora- 
tory of  most  English  public  men.  After  listen- 
ing to  the  stammering  of  Lord  John  Russell,  the 
humming  and  hawing  of  the  genial  Palmerston, 
and  the  studied  abruptness  of  Disraeli,  this  rapid, 
steady,  limpid  quality  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  elo- 
quence was  charming.  To  his  wonderful  fluency, 
the  flexibility  and  strength  as  well  as  sweetness 


GLADSTONE.  1 3 

of  his  voice  added  striking  effect ;  for  it  has 
depth,  volume  and  wide  range  of  tone,  and 
quickly  adapts  itself  to  the  rhetorical  need  of 
the  moment. 

His  style  of  speaking  was  easy  and  simple.  As 
he  proceeded,  he  played  with  a  piece  of  paper  in 
his  hand,  which  soon  proved  to  contain  the  few 
notes  he  had  prepared ;  and  every  now  and  then 
he  stroked  the  thin  hair  above  his  forehead  with 
his  forefinger  or  thumb,  as  if  to  encourage  the 
idea  to  come  out  into  expression.  The  gestures 
were  at  first  few,  the  clenched  hand  occasionally 
suddenly  sawing  the  air  for  a  moment,  then  fall- 
ing as  suddenly  prone  at  his  side.  As  he  ad- 
vanced, he  often  straightened  himself  up  from  a 
colloquial  to  a  declamatory  posture,  with  his 
head  thrown  back,  his  sunken  dark  eyes  glisten- 
ing from  beneath  the  heavy  brows,  and  the  strong 
jaw  seeming  to  set,  as  for  a  serious  purpose ;  and 
then,  as  he  passed  to  another  branch  of  the  sub- 
ject, he  would  relapse  into  the  conversational 
attitude  again.  The  movements,  it  could  be 
easily  seen,  were  quite  unstudied ;  the  impulse 
of  the  moment  guided  the  action  of  head  or 
hand,  or  the  expression  of  the  speaking  features. 
As  he  warmed  to  his  subject,  his  action  became 


14  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

more  excited,  and  his  gestures  more  frequent. 
Now,  his  head  was  almost  every  moment  higli 
in  air,  his  hands  would  be  clasped  as  if  in  appeal, 
he  turned  often  to  the  right  and  to  the  left,  or 
bent  over  the  table  in  front  of  him.  Every  atti- 
tude was  at  once  ungraceful  and  strong.  The 
spontaneity,  the  earnestness,  made  even  the  ora- 
tor's occasional  awkwardness  eloquent;  while  the 
continual,  unhesitating,  liquid  flow  of  the  words 
and  sentences,  and  the  solid  chain  of  thought, 
most  often  diverted  the  listener's  mind  from  the 
gestures  altogether. 

You  recognized  at  once  that  this  was  not  an 
extempore  speech,  in  the  sense  of  being  delivered 
off-hand  and  without  preparation.  Every  point 
had  been  thought  over  carefully,  every  series  of 
figures  conned,  the  array  of  the  general  current 
of  the  argument  duly  and  methodically  arranged 
in  the  mind.  But  the  words,  the  sentences,  the 
few  telling  figures  of  speech,  came  with  voluble 
spontaneity.  The  opening  deceived  you  some- 
how into  the  idea  that  the  flow  of  the  harangue 
would  be  sweet  and  serene  throughout.  But 
before  Mr.  Gladstone  had  been  speaking-  fifteen 
minutes  he  seemed,  as  Sydney  Smith  said  of 
Webster,    "  a  steam    engine    in    trousers."      No 


GLADSTONE.  1 5 

orator  was  ever  more  susceptible  to  the  warm- 
ing-up process,  caused  by  the  very  act  of  speak- 
ing, than  he.  No  orator  ever  became  more 
wrapt,  more  absorbed,  in  the  task  before  him. 
You  felt  profoundly  that  he  was  speaking  from 
the  most  firmly  rooted  convictions;  that  the 
cause  he  advocated  was  buried  deep  in  his  heart, 
and  was  the  outcome  alike  of  conscience  and 
intellectual  self-persuasion.  The  dominant  idea 
with  him  was,  not  to  make  a  great  display,  not 
to  produce  a  refined  and  polished-ofif  bit  of  elo- 
quence, but  to  persuade  and  to  convince.  He 
produced  that  powerful  effect  upon  his  hearer, 
which  is  one  of  the  highest  triumphs  of  oratory, 
that  made  you  feel  ashamed  and  perverse  not  to 
agree  with  him  and  be  persuaded.  I  cannot 
imagine  even  a  stolid  Tory  squire  listening  to 
such  appeals,  without  feeling  some  dull  qualm 
at  his  own  silent  resistance  to  the  persuasive 
argument.  There  was,  too,  a  proud  conscious- 
ness of  his  own  powers  betrayed  in  every  motion 
and  utterance ;  not  vain  self-conceit  was  this,  but 
the  pride  that  assured  him  that  these  powers 
might  be  and  should  be  used  to  attain  the  un- 
selfish public  end  he  had  in  view.  "  He  stands 
up,"  as  a  shrewd  observer  once  said  of  him,  "  in 


1 6  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

the  spirit  of  an  apostle  with  a  message  to  deliver, 
certain  of  its  truth,  and  certain  that  he,  and  not 
some  other  man,  is  appointed  to  deliver  it." 
That  is  just  the  impression  which  Mr.  Gladstone 
has  always  produced,  and  still  produces,  on  those 
who  hear  him  speak ;  and  this  apostolic  earnest- 
ness is,  indeed,  the  chief  source  of  his  forensic 
pov/er. 

As  an  orator,  Mr.  Gladstone  lacks  the  strong 
simplicity  of  Mr.  Bright's  Saxon  English,  and 
the  wealth  of  illustration  with  which  Mr.  Bright 
illumines  his  subject;  he  also  lacks  the  epigram- 
matic sparkle  and  subtle  irony  of  his  long-time 
rival,  Disraeli.  He  has  sometimes  been  com- 
pared to  Burke,  and  in  a  few  respects  closely 
resembles  the  "  great  impeacher,"  in  personal  as 
well  as  intellectual  traits.  But  it  is  doubtful 
whether  Mr.  Gladstone's  speeches  will  be  read 
ninety  years  hence,  as  Burke's  are  read  now. 
They  are  too  verbose.  His  sentences  are  often 
as  well-nigh  interminable  as  the  celebrated  sen- 
tences of  our  own  secretary  of  state.  True,  the 
language  is  beautiful  and  forcible,  the  meaning 
clearly  conveyed,  and  the  argument  pyramidal 
in  structure  and  strength.  But  no  one  would 
put   selections   from  Mr.    Gladstone's   speeches 


GLADSTONE.  I  ^ 

into  a  school  reader  or  a  book  containing 
"Specimens  of  Oratory."  Yet  they  will  be 
eagerly  read  by  the  student  of  eloquence  and 
the  student  of  English  political  history.  They 
are,  for  all  their  defects,  great  and  noble  ad- 
dresses, instinct  with  not  only  the  most  earnest 
but  the  broadest  statesmanship.  They  are  mas- 
terly arrays  of  evidence,  and  deep  reservoirs  of 
exhaustive  argument. 

Mr.  Gladstone's  public  career  extends  over  a 
period  of  about  forty-seven  years.  He  entered 
the  House  of  Commons  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
three,  in  the  year  that  the  great  Reform  struggle 
ended.  He  may  be  said  to  have  already  become 
distinguished  when  he  took  his  seat;  for  he  had 
won  high  honors  at  Oxford,  and  the  Oxford 
prize-men  are  always  known  and  applauded 
throughout  England.  More  than  this,  he  was 
understood  to  be  an  ardent  champion  of  the 
church,  and  to  possess  the  eloquence  to  defend 
it  with  effect.  The  future  Liberal  leader  first 
appeared  on  the  political  arena  as  what  Macau- 
lay  called  "a  stern  and  unbending  Tory."  He 
owed  his  parliamentary  seat  to  the  favor  of  a 
great  Tory  magnate ;  and  he  was  looked  upon 
as  the  young  hope  of  the  party  which  then  had 


1 8  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

few  "  hopefuls,"  young  or  old.  There  was,  from 
the  first,  not  the  least  doubt  of  one  thing,  —  Mr. 
Gladstone  was  certain  to  be  a  parliamentary  suc- 
cess. His  first  speech  more  than  justified  his 
reputation.  It  charmed  and  delighted  every- 
body who  heard  it  or  read  it.  It  suggestively 
contrasted  with  Mr.  Disraeli's  break-down  as  a 
political  tyro,  and  the  long  struggle  which  Mr. 
Disraeli  made  to  retrieve  himself  and  become  a 
power.  Mr.  Gladstone  no  sooner  opened  his 
mouth,  and  let  his  sweet,  silvery,  persuasive 
voice  be  heard,  and  his  intense  ardor  and  ear- 
nestness be  seen,  than  he  took  high  rank  among 
the  orators  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  from 
that  time  to  this  he  has  never  once  made  what 
his  bitterest  enemies  could  construe  as  a  failure 
in  eloquence.  He  has  never  for  a  moment  lost 
his  hold  on  the  silence,  attention,  and  admira- 
tion—  often  reluctantly  awarded  —  of  the  House. 
In  England,  oratorical  success  in  parliament  is 
the  almost  invariable  "  open  sesame  "  to  politi- 
cal honors.  Ministries  need,  almost  above  all 
else,  men  who  can  speak,  especially  men  who 
can  persuade.  Mr.  Gladstone's  readiness  and 
fluency,  and  the  genuineness  of  his  eloquence, 
speedily  stood  him  in  good  stead.     He  was  soon 


GLADSTONE.  1 9 

in  office ;  and  thenceforth  no  ministry  could  be 
formed  from  the  political  party  with  whose 
views  he  at  the  time  accorded,  without  provid- 
ing him  with  a  place  in  it.  He  was  indispensa- 
ble, first  to  the  Tories,  then  to  the  Peelites,  and 
finally  to  the  Liberals ;  his  intellectual  suprem- 
acy over  all  his  contemporaries  had  already 
been  acknowledged  before  he  had  passed  the 
limit  of  middle  life.  And  this  was  in  spite  of 
his  intellectual  restlessness,  and  impatience  of 
submission  to  party  precepts  and  party  rule. 
As  he  advanced,  his  opinions  changed.  Far 
from  proving  "  a  stern  and  unbending  Tory," 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  very  quick  to  yield  to  new 
arguments,  to  accept  new  lights,  to  modify  his 
views  according  to  changing  circumstances.  Pos- 
sessing a  mind  keenly  sensitive  to  the  needs  of 
the  state  and  of  the  people,  he  never  seems  to 
have  allowed  the  bugbear  of  consistency,  much 
less  the  idea  of  mere  loyalty  to  a  party,  to  stand 
in  the  way  of  his  conversion  to  any  cause  of  the 
justice  of  which  he  was  finally  satisfied.  "  Open- 
ness of  mind,"  says  an  able  English  writer, 
**  eagerness  to  learn,  candor  in  the  confession  of 
past  mistakes,  and  a  readiness  to  admit  a  con- 
scious immaturity  of  judgment  on  points  which 


20  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

he  has  not  yet  fully  thought  out,"  are  the  high 
intellectual  and  moral  qualities  that  belong  pre- 
eminently to  Mr.  Gladstone.  So  it  was  that  the 
"stern  and  unbending  Tory"  became  the  ad- 
vanced Liberal  chief  who  initiated  the  later  elec- 
toral reform ;  that  the  champion  of  "  church  and 
state "  became  the  disestablisher  of  the  Irish 
church;  that  the  ardent  protectionist  of  1832 
became  an  abolisher  of  the  corn  laws  in  1845  > 
and  that  the  colleague  of  Wellington  became 
the  colleague  of  Bright  and  the  friend  of  Cobden 
and  Mill.  All  his  life,  Mr.  Gladstone  has  been 
"thinking  aloud;"  he  has  reached  every  stage 
of  his  progress  along  the  political  highway, 
across  open  plains,  where  his  every  movement 
and  step  could  be  seen  by  a  nation. 

Added  to  these  noble  qualities,  Mr.  Gladstone 
possesses  others  which  together  place  him  on 
the  highest  plane  of  pure  and  moral  statesman- 
ship. It  would  be  too  much,  perhaps,  to  say 
that  Mr.  Gladstone  has  not  desired  office,  and 
is  not  fond  of  power.  But  if  he  has  been  thus 
ambitious,  there  is  every  reason  to  conclude  that 
neither  selfish  greed  of  authority,  nor  a  selfish 
wish  to  be  conspicuous  and  laden  with  honors, 
has  entered  into  his  ambitions.     Mr.  Gladstone 


GLADSTONE.  21 

is  an  indomitable  toiler.  He  is  passionately  fond 
of  hard,  long-sustained,  absorbing  labor.  Idle- 
ness for  him  is  a  misery  of  miseries.  And  he 
has  always  been  thoroughly  in  love  with  politi- 
cal work.  He  has  always  delighted  in  the  per- 
plexities of  figures,  in  the  complications  of 
diplomacy,  and  in  the  evolution  of  practical 
improvement  out  of  sentimental  grievances  and 
moral  or  religious  injustices.  If  he  has  desired 
office  and  aspired  to  power,  it  was  that  he  might 
bring  this  intense  zeal  for  work,  this  profundity 
of  conviction,  to  the  service  of  the  people.  He 
has  again  and  again  showed  himself  utterly  reck- 
less of  the  personal  consequences  to  himself  of 
the  line  of  reform  he  has  bravely  adopted. 
Never  was  there  a  more  unmanageable  party 
man,  a  more  incorrigible  party  chief.  To  tem- 
porize and  conciliate  on  a  great  matter  when 
the  well-being,  political  and  social,  of  masses 
of  men  and  women  has  been  at  stake,  have 
always  been  abhorrent  to  him.  If  he  was  in 
office,  he  was  there  to  do  a  certain  work ;  and 
into  it  he  always  plunged  with  an  ardor  and  a 
determination  which  quite  swept  party  interests 
and  personal  perils  out  of  sight.  To  make  Eng- 
land just,  as  well  as  great  and  prosperous,  has 
been  one  of  his  most  persistent  aims. 


22  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

The  same  qualities  which  have  made  Mr. 
Gladstone  a  great  statesman  and  reformer  — ■ 
his  unselfish  and  ardent  adherence  to  his  con- 
victions, and  his  readiness  to  change  those  con- 
victions when  otherwise  persuaded — have  made 
him  one  of  the  very  worst  party  leaders  who  ever 
appeared  in  parliament.  The  tact  and  supple- 
ness, the  spirit  of  conciliation  and  harmonizing, 
the  patience  and  perseverance  by  which  the  suc- 
cessful party  chief  succeeds  in  reconciling  fac- 
tions, and  in  bringing  men  of  different  views  to 
act  together  for  the  sake  of  party  victory,  seem 
to  have  been  almost  utterly  wanting  in  him.  He 
lacks,  too,  those  lighter  graces  of  leadership 
which  have  made  Mr.  Disraeli  so  consummate 
a  political  general.  Mr.  Gladstone  has  never 
taken  pains  to  encourage  and  put  forward  the 
promising  younger  members  of  his  party.  He 
has  been  very  sparing  of  praise  and  encomiums 
to  his  lieutenants.  He  neglects  the  suaviter  in 
inodo  which  sometimes  disarms  the  spirit  of  re- 
volt in  crotchety  statesmen,  and  is  too  prone  to 
wrap  himself  in  proud  solitude  in  the  midst  of 
his  followers.  His  control  over  his  rather  bilious 
and  irritable  temper  has  not  always  been  supreme. 
He  has  not  always  cared  to  conceal  his  impa- 


GLADSTONE.  23 

tience  and  vexation  at  an  expressed  differ- 
ence of  opinion  among  his  fellow  Liberals ;  has 
sometimes  broken  out  in  a  grim  severity  of  sar- 
casm directed  against  his  own  colleagues ;  and 
that,  too,  when  he  was  prime  minister  and  the 
leader  of  the  House.  He  is  not  conspicuous 
for  those  social  qualities  which  especially  tell  in 
politics.  Always  grave,  always  earnest  and  in- 
tense, Mr.  Gladstone  seems  always  to  brand  by 
his  manner  any  play  of  humor  or  touch  of  pleas- 
ant familiarity  as  flippant.  He  was  never,  there- 
fore, thoroughly  popular  in  the  Liberal  party  in 
parliament.  There  was  no  stint  to  the  admira- 
tion of  his  genius  which  his  followers  felt  and 
betrayed ;  no  man  was  ever  more  respectfully 
looked  up  to ;  every  Liberal  felt  his  own  infe- 
riority to  this  lofty,  intellectual  figure.  But  in 
this  exalted  admiration  there  evidently  was  but 
little  mixture  of  that  personal  liking,  and  even 
affection,  which  Mr.  Disraeli,  a  really  colder- 
hearted  man,  has  succeeded  in  inspiring  among 
the  Tories,  especially  among  the  rising  talent  of 
Torydom.  These  causes  served  to  make  Mr. 
Gladstone  a  disastrous  party  leader.  Succeed- 
ing to  the  command  of  a  powerful  and  pretty 
compact  party  organization,  he  so  badly  led  it 


24  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

that  he  carried  it  to  defeat,  almost  to  disorgani- 
zation and  disruption ;  and  the  comparative  fee- 
bleness of  Liberalism  to-day,  when  it  is  rather  a 
conglomeration  of  factions  than  a  party,  is  due 
more  to  Mr.  Gladstone's  fatal  inability  to  lead 
than  to  any  other  one  circumstance. 

Not  only  is  Mr.  Gladstone  a  bad  leader;  he 
is,  if  possible,  even  a  worse  follower.  Four 
years  ago  he  threw  up  his  leadership,  and  the 
judicious  Marquis  of  Hartington  was  chosen  tc 
succeed  him.  Mr.  Gladstone  took  his  place  in 
the  rank  and  file.  But  he  has  proved  quite 
insubordinate  to  party  discipline.  More  than 
once  he  has  interposed  a  voluntary  leadership 
of  his  own,  in  interference  of  that  of  Lord  Hart- 
ington. Again  and  again  he  has  proposed 
measures  and  resolutions,  and  urged  his  Liberal 
friends  to  follow  him,  in  spite  of  the  advice  and 
even  entreaties  of  the  recognized  Liberal  chief. 
He  vehemently  opposed  the  line  taken  by  Lord 
Hartington  on  the  subject  of  Ritualism,  and 
divided  the  House  of  Commons  against  him. 
He  as  vehemently  separated  from  Lord  Hart- 
ington on  the  Turkish  question,  and  proposed 
and  urged  resolutions  which  created  a  serious 
breach  in  the  Liberal  ranks.     The  fact  is,  the 


GLADSTONE.  25 

commanding  intellect  and  figure  of  Mr.  Glad- 
stone can  never  be  compressed  into  the  uniform 
of  a  party  private.  He  must  rule  men's  minds 
by  his  eloquence,  his  ardor,  his  eager  enthusi- 
asm of  conscience.  As  long  as  he  sits  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  he  must  be  a  chief,  subject 
to  no  other  chief,  with  inevitable  power  in  his 
voice,  and  dominating  authority  in  his  utterances 
on  political  policy. 

We  have  scarcely  yet  glanced  at  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's qualities  as  a  practical  statesman ;  yet 
those  qualities  are,  like  all  that  pertain  to  him, 
remarkable.  "In  the  power  of  giving  legislative 
form  to  the  policy  on  which  the  nation  has  deter- 
mined," says  an  English  writer,  "  of  organizing 
complex  and  difficult  details  into  a  complete 
and  orderly  scheme,  and  of  recommending  it 
by  inexhaustible  resources  of  exposition  and 
illustrations  to  parliament,  Mr.  Gladstone  never 
had  a  superior,  or,  we  may  venture  to  say,  an 
equal."  In  the  intuitive  recognition  of  what 
England  has  become  in  earnest  in  demanding, 
and  ripe  to  receive,  Mr.  Gladstone  strikingly 
resembles  our  own  Lincoln.  He  has  always 
kept  just  abreast  of  the  people;  and,  sensitive 
to  their  needs  and  well-being  and   ripe  desire 


26  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

beyond  any  other  statesman  of  his  time,  he  has 
also  been  their  masterly  interpreter,  and  their 
most  efficient  servant.  Like  Lincoln,  quick  to 
perceive  and  transfer  into  practical  policy  the 
popular  need  of  the  day,  like  Pitt  he  is  skilful 
in  moulding  such  a  policy  into  law;  but  in  this 
respect  he  is  certainly  greater  than  Pitt.  It  is 
rarely  that  noble  eloquence  is  joined,  in  the 
same  man,  with  a  high  capacity  for  practical 
work  and  the  mastery  of  dry  detail ;  yet  Mr. 
Gladstone  is  the  ablest  financier  England  has 
produced  in  this  century.  As  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer,  his  Budgets  were  triumphs  of 
the  financial  art;  not  only  in  the  rare  interest 
he  lent  to  figures  by  fascinating  and  illustrative 
statement,  but  in  the  soundness,  the  solidity, 
and  the  resource  of  the  financial  policy  they 
embodied.  They  were  exhaustive  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  money  affairs  of  the  nation,  and  in 
the  fine  and  well-balanced  adjustment  of  taxes 
and  of  the  public  expenditure.  But  his  financial 
have  been,  perhaps,  the  least  —  certainly  they 
are  the  least  conspicuous  —  of  his  triumphs  in 
practical  statesmanship.  It  is  probably  true,  as 
has  been  remarked  of  his  public  career,  that  in 
it,  more  than  in  that  of  any  other  man  who  has 


GLADSTONE.  2/ 

lived  through  the  same  period,  "  the  history  of 
England  during  the  past  forty  years  is  reflected." 
Sir  Robert  Peel  had  no  more  effective  coadjutor 
when  he  abolished  the  corn  laws ;  Mr.  Gladstone 
is  one  of  the  historic  group  who  share  the  honor 
of  having  accomplished  that  brave  and  wise  act. 
The  second  reform  of  1867,  which  was  carried, 
it  is  true,  by  Mr.  Disraeli,  was  based  upon  the 
proposals  elaborated  the  year  before  by  his 
rival;  and  it  may  be  added  that  Mr.  Gladstone, 
although  in  opposition,  did  very  much  to  give 
that  reform  its  final  practical  and  complete 
shape.  He  might  be  well  content  to  rest  his 
fame  for  statesmanship  upon  the  two  great  acts 
of  his  own  premiership  —  the  Irish  land  reform, 
and  the  disestablishment  of  the  Irish  church. 
The  latter  betrayed  no  less  the  supremacy  of 
his  conscience  over  the  impulses  of  his  heart, 
than  his  splendid  talent  for  constructing  a  most 
difficult  and  perplexing  public  measure ;  for  he 
was  as  ardent  a  churchman  in  1871  as  he  had 
been  in  1835.  To  apply  practical  relief  to  the 
grievances  of  Ireland  was  a  herculean  task,  as 
many  a  statesman  had  found  to  his  cost  before 
him;  but  Mr.  Gladstone  brought  to  it  all  the 
fiery  zeal,  the  enormous  capacity  for  work,  the 


28  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

ability  to  frame  a  most  efifective  statute  out 
of  a  chaos  of  bewildering  materials,  for  which 
he  is  conspicuous  far  above  all  his  contempora- 
ries. Those  two  acts,  the  one  according  a  large 
measure  of  justice  to  Irish  tenant  farmers,  the 
other  relieving  Catholic  Ireland  of  the  intolera- 
ble burden  of  an  alien  state  church,  are  noble 
monuments  to  Mr.  Gladstone's  political  genius. 

Mr.  Gladstone  is  a  many-sided  man.  An 
orator  and  statesman  of  the  first  rank,  he  is 
also  a  scholar,  versatile  in  many  branches  of 
study  and  research,  and  in  some  profound. 
His  studies  of  Greek  literature  and  antiquities 
are  well  known,  for  he  has  written  works  on 
these  subjects  which  would  have  made  him 
famous  in  the  learned  world,  had  he  never  sat 
in  parliament  or  wielded  the  destinies  of  the 
British  Empire.  In  "Juventus  Mundi,"  espe- 
cially, we  have  the  fruits  of  an  ardent  and 
exhaustive  research  into  the  evidences  of  the 
historical  fact  of  the  Trojan  war,  which  has 
gone  far  to  enlighten  the  controversies  inspired 
by  the  Homeric  books.  It  is  hard  to  tell 
whether  Mr.  Gladstone  is  more  in  love  with 
classical  or  ecclesiastical  studies;  he  is  assuredly 
deeply  in  love  with  both.     His  earliest  essay  in 


GLADSTONE.  29 

letters  was  his  book  on  the  "  Relations  of  Church 
and  State,"  which  called  forth  Macaulay's  fa- 
mous searching  but  not  on  the  whole  unkindly 
criticism;  and  to  this  day  Mr,  Gladstone  has 
snatched  leisure  from  even  the  busiest  periods 
of  his  political  career,  to  write  essays  and  books 
on  the  changing  phases  of  ecclesiastical  ques- 
tions. He  has  always  plunged  with  as  much 
enthusiasm  into  church  debates  in  the  House, 
as  into  those  on  finance  or  on  the  Eastern  prob- 
lem ;  and  within  the  past  few  years,  especially, 
the  reviews  and  magazines  have  afforded  fre- 
quent evidence  of  the  continued  vitality  of  his 
interest  in  such  topics,  as  well  as  the  sustained 
vigor  of  his  intellectual  strength. 

Mr.  Gladstone's  writings,  indeed,  fully  deserve 
the  permanent  form  in  literature  which  has  re- 
cently been  given  to  them.  In  them  are  to  be 
perceived  the  same  sturdy  force  of  conviction, 
the  same  absorbing  earnestness  to  persuade,  the 
same  zeal  for  the  higher  good  of  mankind,  —  and 
better  than  all,  the  same  lofty  moral  tone  of 
thought,  which  appear  in  his  forensic  productions. 
He  wrote  one  essay,  at  least,  that  was  far  more 
than  an  essay ;  it  was  an  historic  event.  This  was 
his  series  of  letters  on  the  outrageous  tyranny 


30  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

of  the  Bourbon  rule  in  Naples.  Never  was  there 
a  production  more  fruitful  of  great  results ;  for 
it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Mr.  Gladstone's 
letters  to  Lord  Aberdeen  did  more  to  set  Naples 
free,  and  thus  indirectly  to  give  impetus  to  the 
Italian  craving  for  unity,  than  all  the  plots  of 
Mazzini  or  even  the  guerilla  raids  of  Garibaldi. 
It  is  always  interesting  to  observe  and  note 
the  personal  traits  of  a  great  man.  Those  of 
Mr.  Gladstone  maybe  somewhat  judged  by  what 
has  already  been  said  of  the  qualities  which  have 
been  portrayed  in  his  public  capacities.  Mr. 
Gladstone  is  dead-in-earnest,  even  in  his  recrea- 
tions. Consider  what  are  the  favorite  pastimes 
of  this  indomitable  worker  on  the  political  field, 
this  knight-errant  of  political  morals  among  the 
nations,  this  hot  controversialist,  this  one-time 
ruler  of  the  greatest  of  the  world's  empires ! 
Were  you  to  visit  the  picturesque  manor  of 
Hawarden,  in  Wales,  some  time  during  the  autumn 
months,  you  would  very  likely  see  this  man  of 
seventy,  with  coat  off  and  huge  axe  in  hand,  at- 
tacking as  vehemently  the  trunk  of  a  giant  oak, 
as  in  the  House  he  sometimes  does  what  he  re- 
gards as  the  dishonoring  subterfuges  of  an  insin- 
cere  cabinet.      All   the    country  round,    he   is 


GLADSTONE.  3 1 

famous  as  the  feller  of  big  trees ;  and  he  seems 
to  be  intent  on  thus  working  off,  by  the  most 
stalwart  physical  exercise  he  can  find,  the  super- 
fluous vitality  and  fire  which  even  politics  and 
polemics  have  not  exhausted.  And,  for  the  time, 
his  pleasure  is  just  as  great  in  subduing  the  stub- 
born oak  as  it  was  erewhile  in  trampling  down 
the  specious  arguments  of  Sir  Stafford  Northcote, 
or  struggling  with  the  champions  of  anti-Rit- 
ualism. 

The  ex-premier  has,  however,  other  and  serener 
pleasures.  He  is  an  accomplished  player  on  the 
piano,  which  has  time  and  again  proved  a  sooth- 
ing solace  to  his  restless  and  overworked  brain. 
His  voice,  the  most  musical  voice  heard  with- 
in the  walls  of  parliament,  is  also  singularly 
sweet  and  powerful  when,  as  he  loves  to  do,  he 
blends  it  with  the  harmonies  of  his  favorite  in- 
strument. It  is  said  that  when  he  was  prime 
minister  he  was  wont,  after  some  late  and  excit- 
ing debate,  to  return  to  his  house  in  Carlton 
Gardens  in  the  small  hours  of  morning,  sit  down 
at  his  Erard  and  play  a  recent  ballad,  or  perhaps 
an  older  one,  suited  to  restore  repose  to  his  feel- 
ings of  the  moment.  He  is  more  fond,  we  are 
told,  of  sacred  and  ballad  music,  Scotch  airs,  and 


32  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

the  plaintive  melodies  of  his  old  friend  Moore, 
than  of  the  more  fashionable  compositions  of  the 
German  masters. 

In  the  recess,  Mr.  Gladstone  likes  to  gather  a 
circle  of  choice  friends  around  him,  and  to  visit 
certain  congenial  country  houses.  But  those 
friends  are  almost  invariably  serious,  intellectual 
men  and  women,  rather  than  fashionable  people ; 
and  the  country  houses  where  he  is  found  are 
those  of  scholars,  savants,  and  statesmen,  rather 
than  those  of  brilliant  leaders  of  society.  When 
in  London,  it  is  not  very  often  that  Mr.  Gladstone 
is  seen  in  the  drawing-rooms  where  statesmen 
and  scholars,  as  well  as  fashionables,  congregate. 
Whether  in  the  drawing-room  or  at  the  dinner- 
table,  he  is  always  the  same  grave,  thoughtful- 
mannered  personage  that  he  appears  in  the 
House  or  on  the  hustings.  Earnestness  is  not  only 
the  keynote  of  the  man,  but  seems  to  pervade  his 
whole  life.  The  mere  idea  of  Mr.  Gladstone  talking 
"  small-talk  "  is  ludicrous.  Yet  it  would  be  injus- 
tice to  him  to  leave  so  incomplete  a  picture  of 
his  character  in  the  reader's  mind.  He  is  far 
from  being  cold-hearted  or  anchoritish.  On  the 
contrary,  the  very  intense  warmth  and  largeness 
of  his  heart  glow  in  his  eternal  earnestness.     He 


GLADSTONE.  33 

loves  the  causes  to  which  he  devotes  himself — 
the  bettering  of  both  the  moral  and  the  social 
condition  of  the  people,  the  greatness  of  the 
church,  the  down-trodden  Italian,  the  long-per- 
secuted Bulgarian  Christian,  the  memory  of 
Homer,  the  rendering  of  justice  to  the  Irish  — 
with  an  ardor  which  comes  more  from  the  large 
heart  than  from  the  luminous  intellect.  Indeed, 
Mr.  Gladstone's  struggle  throughout  his  career 
seems  to  have  been  to  accommodate  matters  be- 
tween his  heart  and  his  reason.  His  feeling  and 
training  lead  him  to  prefer  patrician  society;  his 
enemies  have  ridiculed  his  alleged  fondness  for 
the  companionship  of  dukes.  The  refinement, 
the  grace,  the  scholarship,  the  elegant  manners, 
the  social  culture  of  the  noble  caste,  undoubtedly 
appeal  strongly  to  his  inbred  tastes.  For  nobility 
in  the  abstract,  too,  Mr.  Gladstone  has  an  historic 
and  deeply  rooted  respect.  At  moments  when 
his  indignation  at  the  obstructive  course  of  the 
peers  has  been  at  its  hottest,  he  has  scarcely 
ever  been  betrayed  into  visiting  them  with  the 
lash  of  his  sarcasm,  of  which  he  has  a  supply  so 
abundant  for  adversaries  in  the  Commons ;  and 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  his  most  congenial 
personal  associations  are  with  the  titled  and  an- 
3 


34  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

ciently  descended  ranks  of  society.  But  the  pro- 
cess of  profound  reflection  extending  through 
long  years,  and  strongly  affected  by  the  progress 
of  events  and  an  ever-widening  sphere  of  obser- 
vation, have  led  him,  on  the  other  hand,  to  an 
intellectual  sympathy  with  the  masses  of  the 
people;  and  instead  of  consorting  in  political 
association  exclusively  with  the  heads  of  historic 
families,  and  politicians  by  right  of  birth,  he  at 
last  finds  his  most  intimate  colleagues  among 
the  statesmen  and  politicians  who  have  risen 
from  the  middle  and  common  classes.  The 
friend  of  Peel  and  Herbert  and  Newcastle  has 
become  the  friend  of  Bright,  Fawcett,  and 
Dilke.  Similar  has  been  his  experience  in  his 
religious  relations.  Of  all  men,  he  long  stood  as 
the  most  ardent  and  zealous  champion  of  the 
Church  of  England ;  and  to  this  day  there  is  no 
more  enthusiastic  or  devout  churchman.  Yet  his 
intellectual  growth  in  gradual  antagonism  to  his 
feelings  and  impulses  has  been  such  that  he,  of 
all  men.  became  the  chosen  instrument  to  aim 
the  first  indirect  blow  at  the  church  establish- 
ment through  its  Irish  sister;  and  signs  are  not 
wanting  that  his  may  become  the  hand  to  strike 
the  axe  at  the  trunk  of  the  English  state  church 


GLADSTOiVE.  35 

itself.  Thus  his  reason  and  his  conscience  seem 
ever  to  be  forcing  him  to  chastise  the  objects  of 
his  love ;  to  cut  adrift  from  old  beloved  associa- 
tions ;  to  part  from  congenial  friendships,  and  to 
form  new  ties  which  he  has  not  much  liked  to 
form,  but  which  he  has  felt  it  right  to  form. 

And  herein  is  to  be  recognized  the  moral 
greatness  of  the  man.  The  struggle  between  his 
reason  and  conscience  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
natural  impulses  of  his  heart  on  the  other,  is  the 
same  internal  struggle  in  which  each  individual  of 
mankind  is  for  ever  engaged.  Mr.  Gladstone's 
self-triumphs  have  ever  been  conspicuously  brave 
and  heroic.  The  tremendous  motive  of  ambition, 
naturally  apt  to  be  so  strong  in  an  ardent-souled 
young  man  who  begins  public  life  with  a  bril- 
liant success,  has  never  swerved  him  from  the  often 
rugged  and  dreary  path  of  duty.  Great  as  he  is 
as  an  orator,  as  a  practical  statesman,  as  an  en- 
thusiastic student,  as  an  untiring  worker,  he  is 
certainly  greatest  in  his  moral  aspect.  No 
statesman  in  recent  English  political  history  is 
so  conspicuous  above  all  others  for  this  trait. 
We  read  that  history,  and  we  find  Pitt  and  Fox, 
Canning  and  Peel,  Russell  and  Derby  —  the 
ablest  and  best  of  that  illustrious  roll  —  engacfed 


36  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

in  bitter  party  struggles  for  personal  supremacy. 
Not  one  of  them  was  entirely  free  from  yielding 
to  the  temptations,  by  yielding  to  which  power 
came  within  their  grasp.  Mr.  Gladstone's  rise 
to  power  has  been  in  spite  of  his  moral  supe- 
riority to  all  personal  temptation.  Indeed,  his 
succession  to  the  premiership  was  due,  not  to  his 
own  persistent  seeking  for  it,  but  to  his  tran- 
scendent ability,  and  the  confidence  that  all  man- 
kind had  in  the  nobility  of  his  aims.  No  man 
ever  took  office  with  a  more  solemn  conviction 
that  it  was  not  a  reward  or  delight,  but  a  responsi- 
bility, a  trust,  and  a  burden.  So  pure  and  lofty 
a  fame  as  his  will  surely  be  enduring ;  and  its 
best  lesson  to  future  generations  will  be  its 
moral  example. 


II. 

BISMARCK. 

'T^HE  rough  and  rugged  majesty  of  Bismarck's 
person  and  bearing  is  a  fine  external  typi- 
fication  of  his  mental  and  moral  calibre.  He 
belongs  physically,  as  well  as  intellectually,  to 
the  race  of  the  world's  giants.  The  Branden- 
burgian  breed  of  men  is  neither  very  tall  nor, 
among  other  Germans,  mentally  superior.  But 
the  Bismarcks  have  been  for  centuries  stalwart 
personages,  stern  and  strong  of  feature  and  char- 
acter. They  have  long  towered  among  their 
Pomeranian  countrymen ;  the  present  Bismarck 
has  only  carried  upon  a  far  vaster  field  the  power 
and  influence  locally  wielded  by  his  ancestors 
for  many  generations.  There  is  always  a  sense 
of  disappointment  and,  in  some  sort,  of  astonish- 
ment, to  find  in  a  famous  man  of  whom  one  has 
long  read  or  heard,  a  diminutive  person,  an  in- 
significant face.  On  the  other  hand,  you  are 
gratified  to  observe  such  a  man  to  be  as  marked 
and    superior    to  others  in    physical  form    and 


38  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

expression,  as  he  is  in  the  quahties  that  have 
made  him  great.  It  is  not  pleasant  to  think  of 
poets  hke  Pope  and  Scarron,  warriors  hke  Lux- 
embourg, as  pitiful  and  sickly  humpbacks ;  it 
adds  something  to  our  estimate  of  men  like 
Washington,  Napoleon,  Cromwell,  Chatham,  — 
and  we  may  well  add,  Bismarck,  —  to  know  that 
their  very  personal  appearance  carried  some- 
thing exceptional  and  distinguished  in  it. 

No  one  would  pass  Bismarck,  even  in  a  crowd- 
ed assemblage  of  celebrities,  or  a  court  gathering 
of  statesmen,  soldiers  and  nobles,  without  paus- 
ing to  look  a  second  time.  In  stature  he  rises 
quite  to  the  lofty  height  of  his  imperial  master, 
and  that  master's  equally  tall  heir  apparent.  His 
herculean  shoulders  seem  to  have  been  framed 
and  knitted  to  bear  the  burdens  of  war  and  em- 
pire. His  haughty,  erect  bearing,  the  chest  full 
and  solid  beneath  the  tightly  buttoned  military 
coat,  the  round  head,  with  its  shining  bald  knob, 
thrown  proudly  back ;  the  firm,  grim  mouth,  set 
rigidly  by  the  massive  jaw;  the  heavy  sweeping 
mustache,  not  long  since  tawny,  but  now  almost 
snow-white;  the  large,  round,  glistening,  cold, 
gray  eyes,  always  full  open,  and  made  more  stern 
by  bushy,  overhanging  brows,  indicate,  as  clearly 


BISMARCK.  39 

as  features  ever  did,  noble  birth,  patrician  in- 
stincts, and  self-conscious  power. 

It  was  in  the  great  gala  year  of  1867,  when 
Napoleon  III.,  then  in  the  summit  of  his  imperial 
career,  was  entertaining  the  sovereigns  and  states- 
men of  Europe  at  the  Exposition,  that  I  first  saw 
Bismarck.  He  was  then  fifty-four  years  of  age, 
and  he,  too,  seemed  at  that  time  to  have  reached 
the  full  height  of  his  renown.  Interesting  as  it 
was  to  see  the  stalwart  old  soldier  who  occupied 
the  throne  of  Prussia,  the  manly  beauty  of  the 
autocrat  of  the  Russias,  the  grace  and  loveliness 
of  Eugenie,  the  secret,  expressionless  face  of  the 
imperial  host  himself,  it  is  doubtful  whether 
either  of  these  potentates  attracted  the  attention 
which  universally  sought  that  great  Pomeranian, 
who  already  seemed  a  world-mover,  and  wore 
the  historic  as  well  as  the  personal  aspect  of  a 
hero.  The  brilliant  Bohemian  victories  of  the 
year  before,  every  one  knew,  were  of  his  doing 
in  their  preparation  and  political  plan.  There 
was  no  doubt  that  the  vast  project  of  an  united 
Germany  had  shaped  itself  quite  definitely  and 
practically  in  his  mind ;  and  that  his  resolute 
soul  —  the  imperious  and  ambitious  soul  that  he 
had  inherited  from  his  mother  —  was  determined 


40  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

to  bring  the  scheme  to  a  not  distant  reahzation. 
Not  a  few  suspected  that  this  very  Paris,  now  so 
gay  and  bedecked  and  joyous,  which  was  feting 
him  as  one  of  her  choicest  guests,  was  looked 
upon  by  him  with  an  eye  not  entirely  single  to 
its  beauty,  and  with  thoughts  not  absolutely  ab- 
sorbed by  admiration  and  gratitude.  It  was  be- 
lieved that  of  the  two  chief  obstacles  to  German 
unity  under  the  chiefship  of  Prussia,  only  one  — 
the  opposition  of  Austria —  had  been  swept  away ; 
and  that  the  next  bold  step  of  the  Prussian  pre- 
mier would  be  to  crush  the  hostility  of  France. 
Yet  here  he  was,  the  guest  of  the  sovereign  whom 
it  was  doubtless  in  his  mind  sooner  or  later  to 
assail,  and  the  recipient  of  the  bounty  of  the 
beautiful  city  which,  three  years  later,  he  was  des- 
tined to  enter  as  a  conqueror. 

Bismarck  showed  himself  freely  everywhere  in 
Paris.  Each  day  he  was  to  be  seen  riding  to  and 
fro  in  the  imperial  carriages,  sometimes  with  the 
Prussian  king  or  the  emperor,  sometimes  quite 
alone.  He  always  appeared  in  that  command- 
ing military  costume,  with  glittering  peaked  hel- 
met and  long  blue  cloak,  which  he  seems  to  take 
pride  in  wearing  on  all  proper  occasions.  Be- 
neath the  helmet,  the  tawny  hair,  the  long,  sweep- 


BISMARCK.  41 

ing,  red-brown  mustache,  the  stern  eyes,  the  ruddy 
blond  complexion,  the  strange,  grim  expression 
of  the  features,  soon  became  familiar  in  the  Paris 
streets.  Some  one  has  remarked  his  peculiar  re- 
semblance to  an  English  bull  terrier;  and  cer- 
tainly his  face  has  the  same  look  of  irascibleness, 
tenacity,  and  stubborn  pluck  which  we  recognize 
in  that  animal's  countenance.  He  bore  himself 
haughtily  and  silently  amid  the  fantastic  festivi- 
ties of  Paris.  Rarely  was  it  that  a  smile  lighted 
up  the  iron  features ;  seldom  was  he  seen  en- 
gaged in  conversation  with  his  companions. 
One  could  not  help  feeling,  as  he  appeared  sit- 
ting bolt  upright  in  the  carriage,  and  now  and 
then  looking  down  at  the  lively  crowds  with  a 
glance  of  apparent  contempt,  that  Bismarck  felt 
uneasy  at  being  there  at  all,  and  was  half  con- 
scious that  it  was  not  quite  the  thing  for  him  to 
be  guest  of  a  people  whom  the  rapid  tide  of 
events  was  hastening  to  compel  him  to  chas- 
tise. That  visit  to  Paris,  indeed,  was  a  rather 
embarrassing  interlude  in  that  large  political 
drama  which  he  had  already  set  upon  the  stage 
of  Europe ;  and  it  was  probably  with  a  sigh 
of  relief  that  he  at  last  whirled  away  from  Paris 
and  from  France,  and  returned  to  the  Friedrich- 
strasse  to  prepare  the  next  thrilling  act. 


42  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

Bismarck,  as  has  been  said,  is  the  scion  of  an 
ancient  and  noble  family.  He  was  born  and 
reared  amid  the  luxury  of  ancestral  acres  and 
social  rank.  He  was  educated  with  all  that  re- 
finement of  painstaking  which  wealthy  Germans 
are  apt  to  lavish  upon  their  children.  He  was  a 
student  at  Gottingen,  Griefswald,  and  Berlin.  In 
his  youth,  he  was  called  by  all  his  comrades  and 
neighbors,  "  mad  Bismarck."  Stalwart  of  frame, 
robust  in  health,  his  animal  spirits  were  leonine 
in  their  roughness  and  exuberance;  he  had  ag- 
gressive daring,  was  quick  to  give  blow  for  blow, 
drank,  revelled,  and  rode  hard,  fought  duels  at 
the  university  by  the  score,  was  now  and  then 
plunged  into  the  gloomiest  fits  of  melancholy, 
made  love  like  a  sentimental  giant,  and  studied 
—  when  at  all  —  with  an  absorbing  energy  and 
intentness  that  would  have  soon  shattered  a 
weaker  constitution.  With  all  these  qualities, 
Bismarck  was  an  aristocrat  to  the  marrow  of  his 
bones.  His  pride  outstripped  that  of  his  ances- 
tors. From  youth  up,  he  was  a  Junker  of  Junkers. 
He  inherited  —  and  improved  upon  the  inheri- 
tance —  intense  loyalty  to  his  lord  the  king  and 
to  the  Protestant  faith,  and  a  sublime  contempt 
of  the  common  people,  and  what  they  absurdly 


BISMARCK.  43 

called  their  "  rights."  It  is  important  to  remem- 
ber the  toryism  of  his  breeding  and  his  nature, 
in  order  to  interpret  rightly  the  motives  which 
have  inspired  his  policy,  and  to  explain  the  oc- 
casional apparent  inconsistencies  of  his  public 
career. 

It  is  almost  trite  to  say  that  Bismarck  is  the 
ablest  statesman  that  any  European  country  has 
produced  during  the  present  century.  The  re- 
sults of  his  public  labors  have  been  simply  colos- 
sal. He  did  not,  of  course,  invent  the  project  of 
German  unification ;  it  had  been  the  dream  of  all 
the  Teutonic  peoples  for  generations.  It  was 
however,  an  enormous,  seemingly  a  hopeless  task. 
Its  realization  needed  a  hand  no  less  firm,  a  soul 
no  less  courageous,  a  mind  no  less  prompt  and 
fertile  in  resources,  an  energy  no  less  exhaust- 
less,  than  Bismarck  proved  to  possess.  At  the 
age  of  thirty  he  was  a  member  of  the  Prussian 
Diet,  and  was  chiefly  noted  for  the  extreme  vio- 
lence of  his  absolutist  opinions.  Men  thought 
him  "  mad,"  as  his  college  mates  had  done.  He 
cut  a  figure  in  the  Diet  rather  grotesque  than 
otherwise.  We  first  hear  of  him  as  violently  op- 
posing a  plan  of  German  unity;  yet  at  that  very 
moment  nothinc:  was  so  near  his  heart  as  to  see 


44  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

Germany  one.  It  was  because  he  saw  that  the 
time  was  not  ripe ;  that  Austria  was  yet  too 
strong  as  a  German  influence ;  that  Prussia  had 
not  grown  to  her  full  stature.  Very  probably 
at  that  early  period,  Bismarck  had  formed  a 
unification  plan  of  his  own.  But  he  was  — 
always  has  been  —  a  Prussian  before  he  was  a 
German.  He  was  resolved  that  Germany  should 
only  become  united  under  the  leadership  and 
sovereignty  of  the  house  of  Hohenzollern.  To 
restore  the  Imperial  diadem  to  the  Catholic 
Hapsburgs  was  the  very  last  thing  to  which  he 
would  consent. 

When,  a  little  later,  we  find  him  acting  upon 
the  broader  fields  of  diplomacy  and  the  confed- 
eration, reading  his  course  then  by  what  we  know 
of  his  subsequent  policy,  it  is  not  difficult  to  see 
that  the  purpose  to  unify  Germany  under  Prus- 
sian chiefship  was  already  matured,  and  that 
already  he  had  begun,  by  sometimes  apparently 
reckless  means,  to  put  his  mighty  scheme  into 
operation.  We  need  not  follow  him  step  by  step 
from  his  entrance  upon  the  diplomatic  stage  at 
Frankfort  to  his  elevation  to  supreme  power  in 
1862,  During  that  period  he  was  vigorously  bat- 
tling with  the  pretensions  of  Austria,  observing 


BISMARCK.  45 

narrowly  the  temper  of  the  French  emperor  and 
court,  and  gathering  about  him  a  group  of  ad- 
herents and  instruments  who  were  to  be  of  use  to 
him  in  the  not  distant  future.  Meanwhile,  he  had 
won  the  confidence  of  the  king,  and  impressed 
the  evidence  of  his  genius  upon  the  minds  of  the 
German  people. 

Called,  in  1862,  to  the  presidency  of  the  Prus- 
sian cabinet,  Bismarck  for  the  first  time  found  full 
scope  and  elbow-room  in  which  to  pursue  his 
almost  insuperable  design.  And  now  for  the 
first  time  he  displayed  those  marked  qualities  and 
characteristics,  which  have  since  become  so  fa- 
miliar to  men.  Bluntly  and  brutally  frank ;  con- 
temning the  tortuous  and  mysterious  methods  of 
diplomacy  which  had  become  traditional  in 
Europe  ;  imperious  alike  towards  colleagues  and 
towards  opponents ;  plain,  pithy,  and  strong  in 
speech;  indefatigable  in  labor;  assuming  the 
whole  burden  of  administration ;  defiant  of  op- 
position; rude,  rough,  and  little  scrupulous  in 
means  ;  arbitrary  and  irascible  of  temperament ; 
iron-willed,  riding  rough-shod  over  everybody  and 
everything  in  his  way,  —  it  is  no  wonder  that  dur- 
ing the  first  year  or  two  of  his  premiership,  Bis- 
marck was  by  all  odds  the  best-hated  man  in 


46  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

Prussia.  Diet  after  Diet  was  chosen  to  oppose 
him,  and  only  went  to  BerHn  to  vote  down  every 
proposal  he  brought  before  them.  But  to  this 
Junker  noble,  the  constitution  that  had  been 
granted  was  an  evil,  possibly  a  blunder.  He  was 
apparently  as  indifferent  to  popular  opposition 
as  to  Austrian  intrigues.  He  was  sublimely  con- 
temptuous of  the  representatives  of  the  people. 
When,  therefore,  they  voted  down  his  schemes, 
he  simply  resorted  to  methods  as  natural  to  a 
man  of  his  bringing-up  and  temperament  as  any- 
thing in  the  world.  He  truculently  told  them  he 
could  do  without  them,  and  sent  them  about  their 
business.  He  was  bound  to  rule  and  to  carry  out 
his  great  project,  constitution  or  no  constitution, 
people  or  no  people.  Every  Diet  that  opposed 
him  was  incontinently  packed  off  home.  He 
thus  virtually  had  the  whole  field  to  himself; 
with  his  large  personality  he  occupied  it,  and  held 
it  against  all  comers,  even  against  the  Prussian 
people.  Popular  rights  were  nothing  to  him ; 
what  were  they  to  this  herculean  despot,  com- 
pared with  the  realization  of  that  glorious  dream 
of  national  unity  which  had  long  been  dreamed 
by  the  most  illustrious  German  statesmen  and 
poets?     Nor  was   German  unity  the  only  lofty 


BISMARCK.  47 

prize  at  which  he  was  grasping.  To  make  Ger- 
many supreme  in  Europe,  as  well  as  a  unit  in 
herself,  was  the  purpose  of  his  daring  ambition ; 
to  make  William  of  Prussia  a  greater  potentate 
than  Napoleon  of  France  or  Alexander  of  the 
Russias,  was  the  object  he  set  before  him ;  and 
every  obstacle  in  the  way  of  this,  be  it  a  Diet,  a 
people,  or  three  or  four  foreign  nations,  he  was 
grimly  resolved  to  crush. 

See  with  what  consummate  adroitness  and  stern 
courage  he  advanced  to  the  consummation  of 
his  purpose ;  on  how  vast  a  scale  his  design  was 
developed ;  what  a  far  and  mighty  reach  his 
mind,  long  foreseeing  and  toweringly  ambitious, 
took !  That  design  was  scarcely  less  gigantic 
than  was  that  of  Napoleon  himself;  and  there 
was  this  difference  between  Napoleon  and  Bis- 
marck, that  the  latter  succeeded.  His  idea  was  a 
loftier  one  than  mere  personal  glory  and  advance- 
ment; loftier  even  than  the  aggrandizement  of 
a  nation ;  it  was  the  unification  of  a  race.  The 
first  step  was  to  avail  himself  of  the  opportunity, 
afforded  by  the  death  of  the  King  of  Denmark, 
to  detach  Schleswig  and  Holstein  from  the  Scan- 
dinavian kingdom.  This  Bismarck  did  with  the 
aid  of  Austria,  meaning  at  that  very  time  to  filch 


48  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

from  Austria  every  fruit  of  the  joint  victory.  It 
is  needless  to  point  out  with  what  success  this 
first  move  in  the  mighty  game  was  played. 
Then  the  time  was  ripe  to  depose  Austria  from 
her  predominance  in  the  Germanic  confederation, 
and  to  put  Prussia  in  her  place.  Not  only  the 
political  plan,  but  a  considerable  part  of  the  mili- 
tary plan  of  the  memorably  short,  sharp,  and 
decisive  campaign  of  1866,  was  conceived  in 
Bismarck's  brain ;  a  fortnight's  action,  and  a 
single  great  battle,  drove  Austria  from  all  federal 
connection  with  her  sister  German  states,  and 
so  crippled  her  as  to  satisfy  Bismarck  that  he 
would  not  henceforth  have  her  hostility  to  reckon 
with.  The  mightiest  and  most  uncertain  strug- 
gle was  still  to  come.  There  is  no  doubt  that, 
from  the  moment  Sadowa  had  been  won,  Bis- 
marck and  Von  Moltke  directed  their  thoughts 
to  the  inevitable  conflict  with  France.  Napoleon, 
indeed,  had  proclaimed  aloud  the  doctrine  of 
nationalities.  But  the  Prussian  statesman  well 
knew  that  Napoleon  would  not,  without  resis- 
tance, permit  the  application  of  that  doctrine  to 
Germany.  The  smaller  German  dynasties  — 
Hanover,  Wiirtemberg,  Bavaria,  Saxony,  Nas- 
sau —  lay  prone  at  the  feet  of  the   Hohenzol- 


BISMARCK.  49 

lerns ;  but  so  long  as  a  hostile  nation  frowned  from 
the  banks  of  the  Rhine,  they  might  still  hope  to 
be  released  from  their  new  and  galling  bondage. 
If  the  war  of  1870  appeared  to  the  superficial 
looker-on  as  recklessly  provoked  and  forced  on 
by  France,  it  is  one  more  testimony  to  the  mas- 
terly adroitness  of  Bismarck.  He  succeeded  in 
luring  France  into  war  at  the  moment  when  Ger- 
many was  prepared  for  the  encounter,  and  France 
was  not ;  and  not  only  that,  but  in  casting  upon 
France  the  onus  and  odium  of  being  the  first  to 
disturb  the  peace  of  the  world.  We  now  know 
that  the  plan  of  the  campaign  of  1870  lay  in  Von 
Moltke's  pigeon-holes  in  1866;  and  that  at  least 
three  years  before  it  opened,  Bismarck  had  pre- 
dicted it  almost  to  the  very  month,  and  had  clearly 
foreshadowed  its  political  as  well  as  its  military 
results.  The  candidature  of  a  Hohenzollern  to 
the  Spanish  throne,  the  insult  to  Benedetti,  were 
dramatic  situations  prepared  deliberately  in  the 
Friedrichstrasse  at  Berlin.  Bismarck  knew  only 
too  well  Napoleon  and  the  French.  He  had 
served  to  good  purpose  as  an  ambassadorial 
spy  at  the  court  of  the  Tuileries:  he  proba- 
bly knew  the  inner  tone  and  feeling  of  Napo- 
leon's counsels,  and  the  temper  of  the  French 
4 


50  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

people  quite  as  well  as  Ollivier  and  Gramont.  He 
chose  his  time ;  his  plans  were  ripe.  He  counted 
beforehand  on  what  took  place ;  every  move  in 
the  game  was  foreordained.  No  statesman  ever 
achieved  a  more  magnificent  triumph  than  that 
which  Bismarck  enjoyed  when,  on  the  17th  of  Jan- 
uary, 1 87 1,  he  stood  in  the  stately  hall  at  Ver- 
sailles, panoplied  in  his  military  gear,  and  listened 
to  the  proffer  by  Bavaria,  Saxony,  and  Wiirtem- 
berg,  of  the  imperial  diadem  to  William  of  Prussia. 
There  were  no  longer  formidable  enemies  to  fear. 
The  two  colossi  who  had  barred  the  way  were 
prostrate  in  the  dust.  The  German  states  had 
become  reconciled  by  the  pitiless  logic  of  force 
to  Prussian  ascendency;  and  the  stupendous 
plot  conceived  at  least  nine  years  before  had 
been  brought  to  at  least  material  fruition. 

It  might  be  thought  that  such  a  result  would 
have  sated  the  ambition  of  any  public  man. 
Had  Bismarck  retired  to  the  always-welcome 
repose  of  Varzin,  to  his  much-loved  family,  his 
horses,  dogs  and  fruitful  fields,  after  returning 
from  France,  and  left  to  others  the  imminent  task 
of  imperial  reconstruction,  he  would  have  left  a 
renown  more  illustrious  than  that  of  any  states- 
man   of   the    century.       But    his    iron    energies 


BISMARCK.  5 1 

seemed  to  derive  new  strength  from  military  suc- 
cess. He  bent  himself  to  the  drier  duties  of  state- 
craft with  the  same  keen  and  tireless  vigor  which 
had  already  accomplished  so  much.  If  he  had 
lesser  obstacles  to  encounter,  they  were  never- 
theless perplexing  and  harassing.  It  is  easier  to 
pull  down  than  build  up,  as  is  testified  by  the  fate 
of  the  Ephesian  dome.  To  compel  the  complete 
reconciliation  of  dynasties  stripped  of  pomp  and 
power,  and  of  peoples  jealous  and  distrustful  of 
Prussian  rule,  to  carry  out  a  plan  which  should 
at  once  secure  German  unification  and  Prussian 
predominance,  to  grapple  with  the  intrusive 
authority  of  the  Pope  and  subordinate  an  hither- 
to almost  independent  church  to  the  control  of 
the  state ;  these  were  the  labors  immediately 
before  the  chancellor,  and  pressing  upon  him. 
But  these  were  not  all.  There  was  that  other 
ambition,  already  partly  fulfilled,  but  still  not 
permanently  achieved ;  the  ambition  to  set  Ger- 
many above  the  nations,  to  make  her  the  arbiter 
of  Europe,  to  institute  her  the  guide,  director, 
and  pioneer  of  the  march  of  European  events ; 
to  hold  the  deciding  voice  in  the  areopagus  of 
the  world.  Bismarck  was  as  sternly  bent  on  this, 
it  would  seem,  as  upon  German  unity  itself 


52  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

The  period  which  has  elapsed  since  the  treaty 
of  Versailles  has  developed  in  a  clear  light  Bis- 
marck's qualities  as  a  statesman  dealing  with 
home  affairs,  and  as  a  party  leader.  He  has, 
indeed,  been  a  party  leader  in  but  one  sense. 
He  has  never  been  the  recognized  and  consist- 
ent chief  of  either  of  the  great  parties  which 
divide  German  opinion ;  he  has  only  led  those 
combined  sections  of  parties  which  have  come 
together  from  time  to  time  to  support  his  policy. 
It  has  been  said  that  Bismarck  is  a  patrician  by 
birth,  breeding,  and  conviction  settled  upon  ex- 
perience. The  idea  of  making  a  free  as  well  as 
a  united  Germany  seems  rarely  to  have  occurred 
to  him ;  and  only  on  such  occasions  as  it  ad- 
vanced some  ulterior  end  he  had  in  view,  has 
he  appeared  to  lean  to  the  liberal  side.  His 
part  has  been  to  attain  military  and  national 
glory  and  power.  When  was  Bismarck  ever 
known  to  become  warm  in  the  advocacy  of 
oppressed  peoples ;  unless,  indeed,  to  cham- 
pion the  cause  of  oppressed  peoples  was  to  reach 
some  end  entirely  apart  from  their  liberation? 
For  the  well-nigh  obsolete  Prussian  constitution 
he  has  never  pretended  to  cherish  any  exalted 
respect.     He  has  not  hesitated  to  violate  it  with 


BISMARCK. 


53 


cynical  frankness  and  autocratic  disdain  when- 
ever it  served  his  purpose.  His  rule,  indeed, 
from  first  to  last,  has  been  that  of  an  autocrat. 
He  has  absorbed  the  royal  power  into  his  own. 
The  old  emperor  has  never  ventured  to  resist 
him,  not  even  when  Bismarck,  quite  recently, 
dictated  the  loosening  of  the  close  and  affec- 
tionate ties  which,  owing  in  a  large  degree  to 
the  near  relationship  of  the  sovereigns,  have 
for  years  bound  Germany  with  Russia.  It  is 
well  known  that  within  the  circle  of  the  German 
court  Bismarck  has  enemies  who  would  be  for- 
midable against  any  other  man  on  earth.  It 
seems  to  matter  little  to  him,  however,  that  the 
empress  and  the  crown  prince  have  long  desired 
to  strip  him  of  his  authority.  He  apparently 
rises  from  each  assault  of  opposition,  whether 
from  the  palace  or  in  the  Reichstag,  endowed 
with  a  fresh  and  more  obstinate  strength.  Patri- 
cian and  autocrat  as  he  is  to  the  marrow  of  his 
bones,  however,  Bismarck  has  been  forced  some- 
times into  strange  party  alliances.  Cynically 
unscrupulous  in  his  methods,  he  has  espoused 
causes  in  which  he  had  no  heart,  and  has  joined 
with  men  with  whom  he  had  no  real  sympathy, 
in  order  to  reach  some  far-seen  goal,  of  which 


54  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

his  whilom  pohtical  bed-fellows  had  no  glimpse. 
When  the  aristocratic  Junkers,  narrower  of  vision 
than  himself,  feared  lest  Germany  should  swallow 
Prussia,  instead  of  Prussia  Germany,  and  so  op- 
posed his  schemes,  he  made  truce  with  the  lib- 
erals and  led  them  from  victory  to  victory.  He 
waged  successful  war  on  the  Catholic  hierarchy ; 
he  granted  some  minor  reforms ;  he  accepted 
colleagues  like  Falk,  and  even  dallied  with  so- 
cialists like  Hasselmann.  When,  in  the  great 
work  of  German  unification,  he  found  it  unne- 
cessary or  impossible  any  longer  to  wear  the 
mask  of  reform,  he  stood  not  on  the  order  of 
his  desertion  of  his  liberal  allies,  but  deserted 
them  abruptly,  and  sought  and  easily  won  the 
support  of  the  Junkers  and  the  Catholics. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  Bismarck  as,  in  the 
legislative  palace  at  Berlin,  he  sits  on  the  central 
bench  of  the  Reichstag,  which  is  set  apart  for 
the  imperial  ministers.  He  usually  enters  just 
before  the  house  is  called  to  order,  and  with  a 
haughty  nod  here  and  there,  sits  plump  down 
into  his  chair,  apparently  unconscious  of  the  mul- 
titude of  eyes  that  are  fixed  upon  him.  He  begins 
at  once  his  work  of  signing  papers,  glancing 
rapidly  over    despatches,   and    giving  orders  to 


BISMARCK.  5  5 

the  secretaries  who  stand  by.  Now  and  then 
he  throws  a  quick  glance  across  the  chamber; 
then  settles  down  again,  folds  his  arms  across 
his  breast,  and  seems  to  be  carrying  on  a  double 
process  of  listening  to  what  is  said,  and  of  mean- 
while thinking  hard.  But  if  Herr  Lasker  or 
Herr  Haenel  happens  to  be  delivering  an  elo- 
quent tirade  against  the  government,  you  can 
easily  read  upon  the  chancellor's  grim  face,  and 
in  his  nervous,  petulant  movements,  the  emotion 
which  is  agitating  him.  He  is  not  one  of  those 
nerveless  men  who  can  listen  with  a  stolid  face 
and  contemptuously  placid  smile  to  the  invec- 
tives of  his  antagonists.  Irritable,  imperious, 
yet  thin-skinned  and  sensitive,  Bismarck  never 
seems  to  care  to  conceal  the  annoyance  or  anger 
so  easily  aroused  in  his  breasL  by  opposition. 
At  such  a  time  you  will  see  him  contract  his 
bushy  brows,  look  rapidly  around  the  chamber 
as  if  to  take  stock  of  his  enemies,  and  finally 
rise  to  his  feet  amid  a  sudden  hush  and  breath- 
less attention.  In  a  delivery  broken,  abrupt, 
spasmodic,  with  a  voice  husky  and  apparently 
always  finding  its  breath  with  difficulty,  —  ex- 
cept at  certain  moments  of  high  passion,  when 
it  rings  out  strong,  clear  and  defiant,  —  with  his 


56  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

big  hands  clutching  the  shining  buttons  of  his 
mihtary  tunic,  or  savagely  twirling  and  twisting 
a  paper  or  a  pencil,  he  proceeds  to  reply  to  the 
attack.  His  round  gray  eyes  flash  brightly  and 
fiercely,  his  large  frame  sways  to  and  fro,  his 
face  grows  red,  his  legs  are  sometimes  crossed, 
then  suddenly  drawn  wide  apart;  and  he  goes 
on  in  the  simplest,  clearest,  frankest  language, 
to  justify  his  acts  and  repel  the  assertions  of  his 
antagonist.  Every  one  is  astonished  at  his  frank- 
ness ;  his  blunt  avowal  of  his  motives;  his  un- 
equivocal declarations  of  future  policy;  his 
merciless  handling,  not  only  of  his  immediate 
opponent,  but  of  all  his  opponents,  and  of  men 
and  courts  outside  of  Germany.  It  is  a  part  of 
his  adroitness  to  seem  imprudently  frank;  his 
apparent  imprudence  and  recklessness  are,  we 
may  be  sure,  calculated  beforehand.  But  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  his  wrath  is  genuine;  or 
that  the  greatest  difficulty  he  encounters  in  de- 
bate is  that  of  keeping  in  check  his  most  unruly 
temper. 

When  we  follow  Bismarck  from  the  chancel- 
lerie  and  the  Reichstag,  from  the  palace  and  the 
council  chamber,  to  his  homes  in  the  Friedrich- 
strasse  and  at   Varzin,  he  appears  to  us  under 


BISMARCK.  57 

many  fresh  and  more  pleasing  aspects.  For 
this  grim,  iron-souled  chief,  whose  courage,  will, 
determination,  and  despotic  temper  are  so  irre- 
sistible on  the  public  arena,  is  really  one  of 
the  most  human  of  men.  He  is  still,  though 
often  oppressed  by  well-nigh  insufferable  neural- 
gic pains,  as  fond  of  a  frolic  as  a  boy.  He  is 
far  happiest  in  his  home,  surrounded  by  a  family 
than  which  there  never  was  a  family  more  ten- 
derly and  chivalrously  beloved.  He  has  a  great, 
affectionate,  generous  heart ;  his  ardent  devotion 
to  those  who  have  won  his  love  is  in  the  mouths 
of  all  Germany.  His  home,  too,  is  a  temple,  in 
which  the  household  gods  are  many.  In  speak- 
ing of  his  quiet,  domestic,  sweet-tempered  wife, 
he  once  said,  "  She  it  is  who  has  made  me  what 
I  am."  At  one  of  the  most  brilliant  periods  of 
his  life  he  wrote  to  this  congenial  partner :  "  I 
long  for  the  moment  when,  established  in  our 
winter  quarters,  we  sit  once  more  around  the 
cheerful  tea-table,  let  the  Neva  be  frozen  as 
thick  as  it  will."  These  winter  quarters  were 
the  massive,  three-story  house.  No.  ']6  Fried- 
richstrasse,  the  chancellor's  official  residence. 
A  sentry's  box  at  the  front  gate  indicates  its 
public  nature;  within,  liveried  attendants  mov- 


55  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

ing  to  and  fro  betray  that  this  great  man,  simple 
and  robust  as  are  his  tastes,  must  still  maintain 
some  show  of  state.  The  broad  stairway  is 
adorned  by  two  stone  sphinxes,  which  seem  to 
symbolize  Bismarck's  policy,  if  not  his  character. 
Beyond,  are  the  larger  apartments  of  the  house, 
—  the  drawing  and  reception  rooms ;  while  still 
more  remote,  and  only  accessible  to  those  espe- 
cially honored  by  Bismarck's  friendship,  is  the 
large,  plain,  curiously  furnished  library,  where 
he  at  once  performs  the  burden  of  his  labors 
and  takes  his  chief  comfort.  The  windows  of 
the  library  overlook  an  umbrageous  park;  the 
room  itself  is  garnished  with  suits  of  armor,  box- 
ing gloves,  foils,  swords,  and  other  paraphernalia 
of  war  and  the  "  manly  arts."  Time  was  when 
Bismarckused  to  sit  there,  drinking  big  draughts 
of  mixed  porter  and  champagne,  smoking  a 
bottomless  student  pipe,  and  working  like  a 
giant,  till  far  into  the  earlier  hours  of  the  morn- 
ing. Latterly,  tortured  by  neuralgia,  he  has  given 
up  these  midnight  indulgences  and  labors,  and 
sits  with  his  family  in  the  common  sitting-room. 

It  is  not  here  in  the  Friedrichstrasse,  however, 
amid  the  bustle  of  the  crowded  city  and  swarms 
of  officials  and  satellites,  that  Bismarck  takes  his 


BISMARCK.  59 

chief  delight.  It  is  only  at  Varzin,  near  by  his 
ancestral  home,  among .  the  scenes  of  his  mad 
and  rollicking  youth,  that  he  most  fully  enjoys 
the  luxury  of  living.  When  away,  he  is  con- 
stantly longing  for  Varzin.  He  once  said :  "  I 
often  dream  that  I  see  Varzin  —  all  the  trees 
that  I  know  so  well,  and  the  blue  sky;  and  I 
fancy  that  I  am  enjoying  it  all." 

Ample  acres,  and  all  the  appurtenances  of  a 
prosperous  and  well-kept  landed  estate  surround 
the  spacious  Pomeranian  mansion  of  the  chan- 
cellor. The  stables  shelter  many  thoroughbreds, 
the  kennels  are  crowded  with  Bismarck's  favor- 
ite dogs.  The  conservatories  teem  with  rare 
fruits  and  flowers;  and  in  all  these  things  the 
master  takes  a  keen  and  watchful  interest.  But 
he  is  most  often  found  at  Varzin,  as  at  Berlin,  in 
his  study.  This  is  a  six-sided  apartment,  furnished 
with  rugged  simplicity.  An  enormous  chimney 
and  open  fireplace  fill  in  one  of  the  corners ;  on 
either  side  of  which  rises  a  column  bearing  a  coat- 
of-arms  on  an  emblazoned  shield.  Bismarck  is 
proud  of  his  blood  and  his  ancestry.  After  the 
French  war,  he  added  to  his  coat-of-arms  the 
banners  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  and  chose  as 
his  motto,  "  Trinitate  Robur,"  —  "My  strength 


6o  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

in  trinity,"  —  an  old  family  device.  "  And," 
suggested  a  friend,  "  it  may  also  signify  '  my 
strength  in  the  three-in-one  God.'  "  "  Quite 
so,"  replied  the  prince,  gravely.  "  That  was 
what  I  meant."  A  bust  of  the  emperor  sur- 
mounts the  chimney;  while  before  it  are  placed 
two  stiff,  high-backed  chairs.  The  walls  are 
adorned,  as  Bismarck  everywhere  is  fond  of 
adorning  them,  with  many  curiosities;  there  are 
Tunisian  sabres  and  Japanese  swords,  Russian 
hunting  knives  and  braces  of  pistols,  military 
caps  and  quaint  bits  of  armor.  The  furniture 
of  the  room  comprises  sofas,  divans,  and  the 
chancellor's  writing-desk  covered  with  green 
cloth,  and  having  upon  it  a  white  porcelain 
inkstand  and  a  two  armed  student  lamp ;  on 
a  small  table  at  one  side  is  a  large  Bible,  evi- 
dently much  used;  everything  is  solid,  plain 
and  substantial,  like  Bismarck  himself  This 
feature  of  simple  comfort  is  discernible,  indeed, 
throughout  the  house.  Nor  is  it  without  its 
mysterious  staircase.  Such  a  one  leads  from 
a  corridor  into  unknown  regions.  "  The  castle 
keep?"  once  asked  a  friend,  pointing  to  the 
door.  "That  is  my  sally-port,"  said  Bismarck; 
and  he  went  on  to  explain  that  it  led  to  a  path 


BISMARCK.  6 1 

in  the  woods,  whither  the  great  man  was  fain 
incontinently  to  retreat  when  threatened  by  a 
raid  of  unwelcome  guests. 

Many  of  Bismarck's  most  attractive  personal 
traits  are  hinted  to  us  by  his  surroundings. 
Once  within  the  serene  atmosphere  of  Varzin, 
the  stern  chancellor  becomes  the  devoted  family 
man,  the  enthusiastic  sportsman,  the  frank  and 
talkative  friend,  and  even  the  genial  wit.  Those 
who  have  been  privileged  to  hear  his  conversa- 
tion, declare  it  to  be  replete  with  brilliant  sallies, 
humorous  hits,  and  graphic  descriptions.  At 
his  ease  he  is  one  of  the  frankest,  most  genial, 
most  entertaining  of  men.  Adamant  as  he 
seems  in  public,  he  has  been  known  to  feel  so 
bitterly  the  stings  of  hostile  sarcasm  and  criti- 
cism as  to  give  way  to  fits  of  weeping.  When, 
during  the  Austrian  war,  the  German  generals 
desired  to  push  on  and  invade  Hungary,  Bis- 
marck strenuously  opposed  the  project;  but  his 
arguments  were  vain.  Chagrined  at  his  failure 
to  convince  them,  he  suddenly  left  the  room, 
went  into  the  next,  threw  himself  upon  the  bed, 
and  wept  and  groaned  aloud.  "After  a  while," 
he  says,  "  there  was  silence  in  the  other  room, 
and  then  the  plan  was  abandoned."  His  tears 
had  conquered  where  his  arguments  had  failed. 


62  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

His  mode  of  life  is  peculiar.  Being  often 
sleepless,  his  usual  hour  of  rising  is  ten  in  the 
morning.  His  breakfast  is  simple,  consisting 
generally  of  a  cup  of  tea,  two  eggs,  and  a  piece 
of  bread.  At  dinner  he  eats  and  drinks,  like  a 
true  Pomeranian,  copiously  and  freely.  His 
princely  appetite,  indeed,  is  described  as  being 
truly  voracious.  His  table  groans  with  a  super- 
abundance of  rich  and  indigestible  food,  and 
dizzy  concoctions  of  champagne  and  porter, 
sherry  and  tea.  "  The  German  people,"  said 
he  on  one  occasion,  alluding  to  the  many  ham- 
pers of  his  known  favorite  meats,  fish,  and  fruits 
sent  him  from  all  quarters,  "  are  resolved  to 
have  a  fat  chancellor." 

Sometimes,  like  lesser  folks,  Bismarck  has  fits 
of  the  blues  and  of  brooding ;  which  can  scarcely 
be  wondered  at  when  we  consider  his  self-indul- 
gence at  table.  On  these  occasions  he  distresses 
those  around  him  by  the  most  forlorn  reflections. 
Once  he  declared  that  he  had  made  nobody 
happy  by  his  public  acts — neither  himself,  nor 
his  family,  nor  the  country.  "  I  have  had,"  he 
went  on  gloomily,  "  little  or  no  pleasure  out  of 
all  I  have  done  —  on  the  contrary,  much  annoy- 
ance,  care    and    trouble."      In    brighter    moods 


BISMARCK.  63 

he  takes  all  this  back,  and  revels,  with  almost 
boyish  exultation,  in  the  splendor  of  his  state 
strokes,  and  the  new  face  he  has  put  upon  the 
world's  events. 

"Where  is  my  dog?"  was  Bismarck's  first 
exclamation  when,  on  a  recent  visit  to  Vienna, 
he  alighted  from  the  railway  train.  Never  did 
a  man  cherish  a  fonder  affection  for  the  brute 
creation  than  this  king-maker  and  world-mover. 
He  watched  by  the  side  of  his  dying  "  Sultan  "  as 
he  might  have  done  over  a  favorite  child,  and 
begged  to  be  left  alone  with  him  in  the  final 
hour.  When  the  faithful  old  friend  gasped  his 
last  breath,  Bismarck,  with  tears  in  his  eyes, 
turned  to  his  son  and  said :  "  Our  German  fore- 
fathers had  a  kind  belief  that,  after  death,  they 
would  meet  again,  in  the  celestial  hunting- 
grounds,  all  the  good  dogs  that  had  been  their 
faithful  companions  in  life.  I  wish  I  could  be- 
lieve that !  "  For  children  Bismarck  has  an 
ardent  fondness.  His  bright  little  grand-chil- 
dren are  the  very  joy  of  his  old  age.  On  every 
occasion,  he  seems  to  take  delight  in  humoring 
and  pleasing  the  young.  Curiously  commingled 
in  his  large  nature  are  sentiment  and  satire,  kind- 
liness  and   humor.     One  day   he  was  taking  a 


64  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

walk  with  his  wife  at  the  famous  watering-place 
of  Kissingen.  As  they  were  about  to  turn  down 
a  side  path,  the  chancellor  saw  just  beyond  a 
rustic  family,  evidently  anxious  to  catch  a  good 
glimpse  of  him.  The  youngest  daughter,  a  girl 
of  ten,  started  forward,  and  with  an  expression 
half-timid,  half-bold,  approached,  staring  at  him. 
Bismarck  at  once  turned  aside  and  sat  down  on 
a  rustic  bench  by  the  road,  until  the  girl  had 
passed ;  when  rising,  he  bowed  his  most  stately 
bow  to  her,  said  gravely,  "  Good  morning,  miss," 
and  proceeded  down  the  secluded  path. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  of  Bismarck's  sturdy 
personal  courage.  One  striking  incident  in  his 
career  has  proved  that  to  all  time.  One  day  in 
1866,  as  he  was  returning  home  from  the  palace 
through  the  Under  den  Linden,  he  was  shot  from 
behind  by  an  assassin.  He  turned  short,  seized 
the  miscreant,  and  though  feeling  himself 
wounded,  held  the  man  with  iron  grasp  until 
some  soldiers  came  up.  He  then  walked  rapidly 
home,  sat  down  with  his  family  and  ate  a  hearty 
dinner.  After  the  meal  was  over,  he  walked  up 
to  his  wife  and  said,  "  You  see,  I  am  quite  well ;  " 
adding,  "you  must  not  be  anxious,  my  child. 
Somebody  has  fired  at  me ;  but  it  is  nothing,  as 


BISMARCK.  65 

you  see."    It  was  the  first  intimation  she  had  had 
of  the  attempted  tragedy. 

These  necessarily  rapid  glances  at  Bismarck's 
career  and  character  may  fitly  be  brought  to  a 
close  by  referring  to  the  depth  and  sincerity  of 
his  religious  faith  and  feelings.  In  an  age  when 
scepticism  and  atheism  are  especially  rampant 
among  his  countrymen,  Bismarck  adheres  stout- 
ly to  the  sturdy  creed  of  his  fathers.  "  I  do 
not  understand,"  he  once  wrote  to  his  wife, 
"  how  a  man  who  thinks  about  himself,  and  yet 
knows  and  wishes  to  know  nothing  of  God,  can 
support  his  existence,  out  of  very  weariness  and 
disgust.  I  do  not  know  how  I  bore  it  formerly. 
If  I  were  now  to  live  without  God  as  then,  I 
would  not  know  in  very  truth  why  I  should  not 
put  away  life  like  a  soiled  robe." 

This  simple  fervor  of  humble  and  deep-rooted 
faith  seems  to  me  to  shed  greater  lustre  on  his 
full,  troubled,  but  triumphant  life,  than  the  con- 
quest of  Austrian  or  Frank,  the  rebuilding  of  a 
fallen  empire,  the  sway  of  a  power  which  bends 
all  Europe  to  its  will,  or  even  that  lofty  mastery 
over  event  and  circumstance  which  must  record 
his  name  the  highest  on  the  illustrious  roll  of 
the  statesmen  of  our  century. 
5 


III. 

GAMBETTA. 

TMAGINE  a  figure  of  medium  height,  but 
ungainly,  awkward,  heavy,  somewhat  obese, 
and  loose-jointed ;  the  limbs  short,  large,  and 
far  from  firmly  knit;  the  head  joined  to  rounded 
shoulders  by  a  short  thick  neck  suggestive  of  a 
tendency  to  apoplexy;  the  shoulders  not  only 
rounded,  but  high  and  heavy;  the  head  larger 
below  than  above,  broad  near  the  neck  and  at 
the  jaws,  narrow  and  rather  flat  at  the  top ; 
wanting  in  veneration,  as  the  phrenologists 
would  tell  us,  but  great  in  passion,  in  comba- 
tiveness,  and  in  language ;  a  fine,  well-set  fore- 
head, however,  wide  just  above  the  eyes,  and 
slightly  sloping  to  the  hair;  a  still  finer  intel- 
lectual brow,  the  best  feature  but  one  of  the 
countenance  —  that  one  being  an  exceeding- 
ly well-cut,  expressive,  handsome,  full-lipped 
mouth,  but  half  concealed  beneath  mustache  and 
beard ;  one  eye  apparently  permanently  closed, 
the  other   small,   black,  at  times    piercing   and 


GAME  ETTA.  6/ 

wide-open,  but  usually  half-closed,  like  the 
eye  of  a  near-sighted  man  who  brings  his 
lids  together  the  better  to  discern  some  object, 
or  like  a  shrewd  person  who  would  let  you 
know,  by  "  the  expression  of  his  eye,"  that 
he  knows  more  than  he  tells;  a  large,  thick, 
unsensitive  nose,  bold  and  Jewish,  with  small 
nostrils ;  the  attractive  mouth  shaded  by  a 
heavy,  jet  black  mustache,  which  joins  on 
either  side  a  beard  also  mostly  jet  black,  w^ith 
a  slight  tinge  of  gray ;  the  hair  fine,  straight, 
once  black,  but  nearly  gray  now  just  where 
it  is  smoothly  brushed  back  from  the  temples 
over  the  large  ears,  and  falling  in  a  curve  be- 
hind over  the  neck:  the  complexion  of  an  un- 
healthy, bilious  hue  of  pale  yellow;  the  face 
indolent  in  general  expression,  giving  scarcely 
the  slightest  hint  of  unusual  ability  of  any  sort, 
and  the  movement  slouchy  and  careless,  non- 
chalant and  often  heavy,  as  if  the  man  were 
weary  of  carrying  his  superabundance  of  flesh. 
This  man,  too,  is  evidently  uneasy  at  being 
well-dressed.  He  is  manifestly  uncomfortable  in 
the  broadcloth  and  white  necktie  which  the  eti- 
quette of  his  high  office  has  forced  upon  him. 
The  broadcloth  does  not  fit,  the  w^hite   necktie 


68  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

is  clumsily  tied,  and  is  usually  awry.  He  cannot 
help  an  old  Bohemian  habit  of  his,  of  hanging 
his  fat  hands  lazily  in  his  trousers'  pockets, 
whither  they  are  always  wandering,  even  when 
the  moment  requires  an  attitude  of  dignity. 
Observe  him  as  he  saunters  through  the  fres- 
coed corridors  of  Versailles,  talking,  perhaps, 
with  half  a  dozen  of  his  colleagues  as  he  goes. 
He  says  little ;  the  others  talk  and  he  nods,  and 
now  and  then  utters,  in  a  deep,  sonorous  voice, 
a  sentence  to  which  the  others  pay  respectful 
heed.  His  hands  are  hanging  in  his  pockets ; 
the  little  white  flower  in  his  button-hole  is  crum- 
pled ;  he  almost  seems  out  of  place  among  these 
elegantly  attired,  trim-whiskered,  elegant-man- 
nered men,  the  legislators  of  France.  Yet  there 
is  no  duke  or  statesman  among  them  to  whom, 
as  he  passes  among  the  ever-increasing  group  of 
deputies,  so  much  deference  is  paid  as  to  this 
rather  uncouth  and  not  at  first  sight  at  all  pre- 
possessing personage. 

He  enters  the  old  Versailles  theatre,  on  whose 
boards  Moliere  once  jibed  and  gambolled,  and 
where  the  magnificent  monarch  used  to  lounge 
amid  his  gorgeous  court;  now  the  hall  of  the 
deputies    of    republican     France.      He    passes 


GAME  ETTA.  69 

slowly  among  the  benches  of  the  Left.  There 
he  is  at  once  surrounded  by  a  large,  admiring 
group.  The  talk  is  of  the  important  events  or 
measures  of  the  day.  This  man  is  the  centre  of 
attraction,  the  unquestioned  oracle  of  the  group. 
And  now  he  rouses  himself.  He  is  no  longer 
the  listless  fat  man  of  the  corridor.  His  voice 
rolls  out  loud,  full,  deep,  in  tones  as  warm  ,and 
as  musical  as  ever  man  heard.  He  gesticulates 
—  every  gesture  is  force,  vigor,  eloquence.  He 
talks  with  a  warm  inspiration,  in  an  authorita- 
tive manner,  quite  conscious  of  his  mastery  over 
his  companions,  and  utters  ideas  which  none 
dispute,  or  more  than  demur  at. 

There  was  a  time  —  a  year  or  two  ago  — 
when  he  would  have  taken  a  seat  in  the  midst  of 
the  deputies  of  the  Left;  and  would  have  sat, 
when  the  president  rang  his  bell  to  call  the 
Chamber  to  order,  in  a  slouching  attitude,  now 
and  then  turning  right  or  left  to  say  something 
to  a  neighbor,  and  listening  intently  to  what 
went  forward.  Then,  when  a  scene  of  excite- 
ment occurred —  as  it  often  did  and  does  in  that 
Chamber  —  when  deputies  were  drowning  the 
voice  of  the  speaker  in  the  tribune,  and  shaking 
their  fists  in   each  other's  faces,  and  hurrying 


70  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

down  to  confront  each  other  with  hostile  gesture 
and  menace  of  tongue  and  attitude  in  the  open 
space  below  the  benches  —  on  such  an  occasion 
you  might  have  seen  him  rise,  raise  his  arm,  ex- 
tend his  hand,  and  by  the  powerful  persuasion 
of  his  voice  and  manner  quell  the  tumultuous 
mood  of  his  hot-headed  followers.  Then,  too, 
amid  a  stillness  as  deep  as  that  of  a  mountain 
solitude,  you  might  have  seen  him  at  a  certain 
moment  leap  from  his  seat,  thrust  back  his 
straggling  locks,  and  with  long  stride  and  head 
aloft  advance  to  and  ascend  the  tribune ;  whence 
would  thereupon  flow  the  richest  and  most  re- 
sistless eloquence  that  a  French  assemblage  has 
heard,  since,  in  the  same  Versailles,  Gabriel  Ri- 
quetti  de  Mirabeau  shook  throne  and  caste  with 
the  sudden  thunder  of  his  wordy  onslaught. 

But  now  the  personage  we  have  described 
ascends,  not  the  tribune,  but  the  presidential 
platform,  and  promptly  at  the  designated  hour 
rings  his  bell  and  summons  deliberation  out  of 
the  babel  of  voices.  The  dignity  in  which  he 
seemed  so  lacking  a  little  while  ago,  now  sits  as 
easily  upon  him  as  did  his  indolence ;  while  the 
strong  grasp  with  which  he  once  held  his  parti- 
sans, now  holds  the  entire  assembly.    He  is  their 


GAME  ETTA.  yi 

master,  and  readily  and  vigorously  maintains 
his  mastery.  An  intense  and  impetuous  parti- 
san, he  shows  himself  capable  of  a  Roman  im- 
partiality. The  sharp  stroke  of  reprimand,  the 
quick  check  of  parliamentary  order,  fall  upon 
republican  and  monarchist  alike.  The  power 
of  the  chair  is  sustained  intact.  His  presence  of 
mind  is  never  once  suspended.  The  despatch  of 
business  under  his  rule  is  marvellously  rapid. 
He  holds  the  reins  of  this  turbulent,  excitable, 
sometimes  riotous  body,  with  the  hand  and 
nerve  of  a  Titan ;  every  deputy  feels  the  bit  jerk 
in  his  mouth  at  the  slightest  rebellion.  Every 
man  feels  that  there  resides  in  the  chair  a 
power  within  a  power;  the  power  of  individual 
strength  and  command  supplementing  the  power 
endowed  by  the  rules,  by  the  representation  of 
law,  and  typified  by  the  mace.  A  more  un- 
promising presiding  officer  than  this  man  would 
have  seemed  to  be  a  year  ago,  could  not  be 
conceived.  An  awkward,  heavy  person,  a  man 
easily  aroused  to  white-hot  passion,  who  often 
broke  through  all  self-restraint  and  violated 
every  rule  he  is  now  called  on  to  enforce,  whose 
whole  being  seemed  wrapped  in  the  design  to 
crush  out  one  of  the  great  parties  in  the  nation. 


72  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

one  who  could  not  be  supposed,  considering  his 
unstudious  and  careless  habits,  to  have  deeply- 
conned  pariiamentary  procedure,  seemed  to  be 
the  last  person  capable  of  filling  well  the  faiiteidl 
of  M.  Gr^vy  and  M.  Buffet.  Yet  he  has  proved 
a  far  more  able  president  than  either. 

Sometimes  men  leap  from  obscurity  to  fame 
in  a  day.  One  of  this  rare  sort  is  Leon  Gam- 
betta.  It  would,  perhaps,  be  too  much  to  say- 
that  his  sudden  rise  was  the  result  of  accident ; 
for  had  he  not  been  a  man  of  genius,  the  op- 
portunity would  have  been  offered  him  in  vain. 
But  the  opportunity  to  show  men  what  there 
was  in  him  was  accidental.  On  a  certain  day  in 
1868,  Jules  Favre,  the  renowned  advocate,  states- 
man, and  academician,  had  a  great  cause  to 
plead ;  a  cause,  however,  more  political  than 
legal.  But  that  day  he  was  ill ;  some  one  must 
take  his  place ;  and,  at  a  somewhat  rash  venture, 
he  chose  as  his  substitute  an  almost  absolutely 
unknown,  out-at-elbows,  loud-talking  Bohemian 
cafe-orator.  M.  Favre  knew  Gambetta  but  little  ; 
and  mainly  knew  him  as  an  ardent  and  out- 
spoken republican.  The  mere  issue  of  the 
trial,  which  was  that  of  certain  editors  for  open- 
ing their   columns  to  the  Baudin    subscription. 


GAME  ETTA.  73 

was  nothing.  At  a  time  when,  under  the  em- 
pire, free  speech  was  forbidden  the  republicans 
on  the  platform,  such  trials  were  seized  upon  by 
republican  orators  as  the  occasions  of  fierce 
attacks  upon  the  Napoleonic  regime.  What  was 
needed,  then,  was  a  bold,  eloquent,  devil-me- 
care,  red-hot  republican,  who  would  stand  up 
and  lash  the  empire  without  mercy,  before  a 
bench  of  imperial  judges. 

Gambetta  electrified  all  France  by  his  speech. 
It  was  a  tremendous  indictment  against  Napole- 
onism.  Never  did  an  orator  produce  a  more 
immediate  or  more  overwhelming  effect.  When 
Gambetta  lay  down  that  night  his  name  was  ring- 
ing in  every  club  and  on  every  boulevard  in  Paris. 

The  broad  road  of  political  fortune  lay  open 
before  him.  The  next  day  he  was  a  recognized 
leader  among  the  republicans.  His  audience 
had  long  been  the  seedy  loungers  of  the  Cafe 
Procope.  It  now  included  all  France,  and  there 
were  many  listeners  outside  of  France.  Yester- 
day an  impecunious  Bohemian,  living  in  a  garret, 
shabby  of  dress,  and  often  short  in  the  matter  of 
food;  to-day  a  deputy-elect  of  the  city  of  Mar- 
seilles (as  the  successor  of  Berryer),  taking 
counsel    with    and   listened    to    by  the   "  silver- 


74  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

grays  "  of  the  republican  party ;  very  soon  the 
man  in  the  Chamber  who,  of  all  others,  was 
most  dreaded  and  hated  by  Rouher  and  his  in- 
tolerant imperialist  majority.  For  now  Gam- 
betta  talked  as  no  other  man  talked.  He  spoke 
more  boldly,  what  was  worse,  far  more  elo- 
quently, than  the  boldest  and  most  eloquent 
sages  of  the  days  of  '48. 

Nowhere  is  the  curiosity  about  the  antece- 
dents of  a  man  who  has  become  notorious 
strained  to  a  higher  pitch  than  in  gossiping  Paris. 
People  began  to  ask  who  this  oratorical  ath- 
lete was,  and  whence  he  came ;  and  on  inquiry 
learned  that  he  was  the  son  of  an  Italian  grocer 
at  Cahors,  in  midland  France,  "  of  poor  but  re- 
spectable parents,"  descended  from  grocers  on 
one  side,  and  chemists  on  the  other;  of  warm 
Genoese  blood ;  destined,  at  first,  to  be  a  priest, 
as  were  Renan,  Victor  Hugo,  and  Rochcfort  be- 
fore him ;  expelled,  however,  from  the  priest- 
making  seminary  to  which  he  had  been  sent, 
with  the  message  to  his  father  from  the  superior, 
"  You  will  never  make  a  priest  of  him,  he  has  an 
utterly  undisciplinable  character;  "  resolved  now 
to  be  a  lawyer  and  a  politician.  It  was  told  how 
that,  one  day,  he  was  playing  in  a  carpenter's 


GAME  ETTA.  75 

shop,  when  one  of  his  companions,  in  sport, 
made  a  lunge  at  him  with  a  pointed  stick,  which 
thrust  the  right  eye  out  of  its  socket;  and  so 
his  disfigurement,  apparent  to  all  men,  was  ex- 
plained to  the  world. 

Gambetta,  as  a  republican  chief  in  the  omi- 
nous days  of  1868-70,  carried  with  him  into  the 
arena  all  his  old  audacity,  big-voiced  loudness, 
Bohemian  indifference  to  dress  and  manners, 
and  absolute  ignorance  of  what  fear  is.  As  he 
appeared  in  those  days  in  the  Chamber,  accord- 
ing to  one  who  then  saw  him,  "  He  disdained  all 
the  classic  attitudes  of  rhetoric,  flung  his  arms 
about  him,  banged  his  fist  down  upon  the  first 
thing  that  came  uppermost,  —  book,  hat,  or 
desk,  —  rang  his  voice  through  the  wildest 
changes  from  the  roar  to  the  falsetto,  and  would 
have  seemed  to  a  deaf  man  the  maddest  contor- 
tionist at  large.  But  if  you  listened  to  him,  you 
were  not  likely  to  forget  it.  His  oratory  had  all 
the  defiance,  energy,  and  fire  of  youth  in  it. 
He  never  hesitated  for  a  word,  spoke  headlong, 
every  one  of  his  phrases  being  colored  with  that 
picturesque  imagery  of  the  south,  always  vivid, 
always  new,  and  soaring  at  times  to  surprising 
heights  in  beauty  of  sentiment." 


76  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

It  was  when  thus  roused  to  a  great  and  noble 
oratorical  effort,  in  the  face  of  an  irresistible  and 
submissive  imperialist  majority,  and  defiant  of 
the  prevailing  influences  around  him,  that  the 
writer  first  saw  the  future  dictator,  on  the  floor 
of  the  Chamber  in  the  Palais  Bourbon,  The 
contrast  between  his  heavy,  uncouth  figure,  his 
slouching  manner,  his  shabby  dress,  his  rather 
repelling  tout  ensemble,  and  the  appearance  and 
bearing  of  the  group  of  republican  deputies 
around  him,  was  the  first  impression  conveyed 
to  the  mind.  There  were  the  venerable  and 
pfim-looking  Garnier-Pages ;  the  leonine  Jules 
Favre,  his  thick  locks  feathering  high  above  his 
forehead ;  the  portly  Jules  Simon,  as  stately  and 
sedate  as  a  count  of  the  old  regime ;  and  Eu- 
gene Pelletan,  with  dark  flashing  eye,  and  deli- 
cate refinement  of  feature,  the  beau  ideal  of  a 
cultured  Frenchman  of  letters.  How  little  they 
seemed  to  have  in  common  with  this  big,  loud, 
burly,  rough,  ill-dressed  fellow,  who  appeared  as 
an  intruder  among  them  !  Yet,  in  another  five 
minutes,  when  his  deep,  full  voice  rang  out,  or 
sank  to  sweetest  and  gentlest  accents ;  when  he 
held  a  hostile  chamber  absolutely  spell-bound 
and  silent  with  the  matchless  marjic  of  his  elo- 


GAME  ETTA. 


77 


quence ;  how  he  was  transfigured,  how  you  for- 
got the  shabby  coat,  the  Bohemian  slouch,  — 
how  7toiv  he  towered  above  every  one  of  the 
historic  figures  around  him  ! 

He  became,  indeed,  terriWe  to  the  empire. 
He  boldly  told  Ollivier,  the  "  reform  "  premier, 
from  the  tribune,  that  the  "irreconcilables  "  only 
accepted  Ollivier's  concessions  as  "  a  bridge  to 
the  republic."  As  events  drew  near  to  the 
supreme  catastrophe  after  Sedan,  Gambetta 
foresaw  what  was  coming,  and  felt  that  his  op- 
portunity for  dealing  a  fell  blow  at  Napoleonism 
was  near.  But  now  he  was  walking  amid  myste- 
rious dangers.  Shortly  after  the  first  defeats  of 
the  French  in  1 870,  and  after  Paris  had  been 
put  in  a  state  of  siege,  an  attempt  was  made  by 
the  Palikao  ministry  to  kidnap  the  popular  trib- 
une. "  All  my  footsteps  are  dogged,"  said  Gam- 
betta to  a  friend ;  "  and  my  poor  aunt  advises 
me  to  carry  a  revolver.  But  that  would  do  no 
good."  Before  he  could  be  got  rid  of,  however, 
Sedan  was  fought  and  lost.  Gambetta  saw  that 
the  time  for  action  had  come.  The  Chamber, 
next  day,  was  crowded.  No  sooner  had  it  been 
called  to  order  than  Jules  Favre  rose  and  moved 
the  deposition  of  the  Napoleon  dynasty.     The 


78  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

motion  was^  passed  with  but  feeble  opposition. 
Then  Gambetta  rose  with  one  hand  grasping  the 
lapel  of  his  coat,  the  other  raised  high  above  his 
head,  and  in  a  stentorian  voice  that,  it  is  said, 
was  clearly  heard  by  the  crowd  in  the  courtyard 
outside,  moved  that  the  republic  be  declared 
established.  Again  the  assembly  yielded  assent 
to  the  demand  of  the  republican  chiefs.  The 
next  thing  was  to  form  a  provisional  govern- 
ment; nor  from  this  could  Gambetta  be  left  out. 
Its  three  principal  members  were  Gambetta, 
Jules  Favre,  and  General  Trochu.  It  had  not 
been  in  existence  a  fortnight  before  Gambetta 
was  confessedly  its  ruling  spirit;  a  month  had 
not  elapsed  before  he  was  tJie  provisional  gov- 
ernment, its  other  members  being  virtually  his 
clerks  and  messengers. 

At  thirty-two  years  of  age,  then,  the  son  of 
the  grocer  of  Cahors  was  the  absolute  dictator 
of  France.  It  is  often  asked  what  opportunity 
Shakspearc  could  have  had  to  acquire  the 
legal  and  medical  knowledge  displayed  in  his 
dramas.  It  is  no  less  a  puzzle,  perhaps,  where 
and  when  Leon  Gambetta  learned  the  arts  of 
government  and  war.  His  wonderful  mastery 
of  men,  his  tremendous  will,  his  genius  for  per- 


GAME  ETTA.  79 

suasion,  the  ceaseless  activity  of  his  brain,  the 
immense  vigor  of  his  action,  the  rapidity  of  his 
perceptions,  were  perhaps  innate ;  but  where 
did  he  pick  up  the  vast  knowledge  of  detail  in 
two  of  the  most  difficult  of  human  sciences, 
which  he  displayed  during  that  troublous  and 
terrible  time  when  he  held,  undisputed,  the 
reins  of  absolute  power?  Yet  see  what  he  did 
in  that  gloomy  period.  He  himself  organized 
the  only  army  —  the  army  of  the  Loire  —  which 
even  temporarily  checked  the  flood  of  German 
invasion;  the  only  army  which  won  a  victory. 
The  chaos  in  the  civil  administration  of  France, 
brought  about  by  the  collapse  of  the  empire 
and  the  unparalleled  disasters  which  had  fallen 
on  the  country,  Gambetta  transformed  into  order. 
Riot  and  insurrection  in  the  hot-beds  of  fanati- 
cism were  repressed  by  his  strong  hand.  He 
raised  money  to  equip  troops,  and  send  them  to 
the  front.  He  created  generals,  prefects,  mayors. 
He  presided  over  the  councils  of  the  central  au- 
thority, and  himself  carried  into  prompt  effect 
the  decisions  of  those  councils.  The  wonder  is, 
as  we  read  of  the  immense  amount  of  work  he 
went  through  from  day  to  day,  when  he  could 
have  eaten  or  slept.     Practically  and  actually  he 


80  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

was  at  once  the  chief  magistrate  and  the  com- 
mander-in-chief. If  he  failed  to  rehabilitate 
France,  to  expel  the  German  hordes  from  her 
soil,  to  protect  Paris  from  the  desecrating  pres- 
ence of  the  foe,  it  was  because  no  amount  of 
genius  could  have  achieved  these  results.  But 
he  proved  himself  a  statesman  of  the  very  first 
order.  His  talent  for  organization  was  shown  to 
be  as  marvellous  as  the  power  of  his  eloquence 
and  the  strength  of  his  individuality. 

Nor  is  there  evidence  wanting  of  Gambetta's 
fervent  patriotism.  What  an  opportunity  this 
warm-blooded,  ambitious  young  man  of  thirty- 
two  had  to  imitate  the  role  of  a  Napoleon !  All 
the  powers  of  the  state  in  his  hands ;  the  generals 
and  the  prefects  men  of  his  own  choice ;  the 
country,  rent  by  its  misfortunes,  seeming  to  need 
a  master  spirit;  his  colleagues  submissive  to  his 
Titanic  will ;  opposition  disarmed  and  powerless. 
He  had  not  even  the  perils  of  an  Eighteenth 
Brumaire  or  a  Second  of  December  to  fear. 
To  seize  upon  supreme  power,  and  to  use  it 
to  make  his  dictatorship  not  only  supreme, 
but  permanent,  was  apparently  easy.  Yet  no 
thought  of  such  treachery  seems  to  have  entered 
his  head.     Just  as  soon  as  he  could  he  appealed 


GAME  ETTA.  8 1 

to  France  to  elect  an  Assembly  to  make  peace 
with  the  Germans.  He  knew  well  that  this  As- 
sembly would  take  to  itself  the  vast  executive 
powers  he  now  wielded.  He  knew  that  the 
representatives  of  France  must  be,  for  a  time, 
its  supreme  governors.  He  himself  must  step 
down  from  the  exalted  height  to  which  circum- 
stances and  his  own  genius  had  raised  him.  But 
he  did  not  delay  a  day  in  summoning  this  power, 
that  must  supersede  his  own,  into  existence  ;  and 
when  the  National  Assembly  met  at  Bordeaux, 
he  laid  his  authority  at  its  feet  as  quietly  and 
submissively  as  if  no  passion  of  ambition  had 
ever  stirred  his  breast. 

His  almost  superhuman  toil  during  those 
stormy  months  had  impaired  a  constitution 
never  very  robust ;  and  now  the  reaction  came. 
Throughout  the  negotiations  for  peace,  the  for- 
mation of  the  government  of  the  "  National  De- 
fence," the  rise  and  bloody  suppression  of  the 
commune,  Gambetta  lived  in  enforced  retire- 
ment. His  spirit  was  amid  those  exciting  scenes, 
but  his  state  of  health  warned  him  to  keep  aloof 
from  them.  It  was  not  until  the  administration 
of  Thiers  had  succeeded  alike  in  making  peace 
with  the  victorious  Germans,  and  in  establishing 
6 


82  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

itself  as  the  executive  authority  in  France,  that 
the  ex-dictator  again  reappeared  upon  the  scene. 
His  entrance  as  a  deputy  into  the  Assembly  was 
so  quiet  that  it  might  be  said  to  have  been  al- 
most unnoticed.  Indeed,  at  that  moment  he  was 
unpopular.  The  rashness  and  unavailing  bold- 
ness of  his  defence  of  the  territory  were  sharply 
criticised  on  almost  every  hand.  Thiers,  in  a 
moment  of  vehement  passion,  called  him  "  a 
furious  fool."  It  was  wise  in  him,  then,  to  re- 
enter the  public  arena  by  a  side  door,  and  to 
shelter  himself  in  the  shadow  of  a  corner. 

The  genius  of  Gambetta  soon  surmounted  the 
ephemeral  obloquy  under  which  he  rested.  Al- 
ready he  had  won  the  renown  of  being  the  very 
first  among  living  French  orators ;  and  this  was 
saying  much,  at  a  time  when  Thiers,  Victor  Hugo, 
Jules  Favre,  and  Louis  Blanc  were  yet  alive. 
He  had  also  proved  himself  a  great  organizer 
and  administrator,  despite  his  inevitable  failure. 
But  hitherto  he  had  exhibited  only  tremendous 
energy,  headlong  rashness,  extreme  opinion,  and 
a  hot  and  impetuously  partisan  method  of  urging 
it.  His  head  was  strong,  but  had  not  been 
thought  "  level."  As  a  politician  and  party 
leader  he  was  as  yet  untried.      His  eloquence 


GAME  ETTA.  83 

was  sure  to  be  a  power;  his  magnetic  influence 
over  men  would  inevitably  make  him  a  consider- 
able personage  in  the  Assembly.  But  had  he 
tact,  judgment,  resource,  in  party  warfare  ?  When 
he  reappeared  at  Versailles  there  was  not  prob- 
ably a  man  in  France  who  did  not  regard  him 
as  a  radical  of  radicals ;  an  irreconcilable,  per- 
haps a  socialist,  possibly  a  friend  of  the  com- 
mune. Thiers  counted  on  his  violent  hostility ; 
and  the  old  statesman,  for  once  not  shrewd,  con- 
temned his  opposition. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  within  three 
years  after  Gambetta,  bearing  such  a  character 
as  has  been  described,  had  taken  his  seat  in  the 
Assembly,  he  had  proved  himself  the  ablest  and 
most  consummate  party  chief  in  the  France  of 
this  century.  So  far  from  turning  out  to  be  a 
"furious  fool,"  incapable  of  self-control,  imprac- 
ticable, revolutionary,  hot-headed,  and  vindictive, 
Gambetta  —  and  Gambetta  alone — gathered  the 
discordant  factions  of  the  republican  party  into 
a  compact  and  harmonious  body,  reconciled  their 
differences,  patched  up  their  personal  quarrels, 
soothed  their  contending  ambitions,  made  them 
a  united  army  crusading  for  a  great  and  practi- 
cable cause,  and  himself  led  them  to  one  of  the 


84  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

most  memorable  political  victories  ever  won. 
He  was  a  wonderful  magician  in  his  use  of  party 
tactics.  He  restrained  or  let  loose  the  ardor  of 
his  followers  at  will,  each  at  the  moment  when 
restraint  or  when  display  would  be  most  effective 
for  the  end  in  view.  His  resources  in  the  fencing 
and  manoeuvring  of  the  parliamentary  struggle 
were  simply  inexhaustible.  His  temper,  self-re- 
straint, presence  of  mind,  rapidity  of  decision, 
tact,  and  ingenuity ;  his  masterly  management  of 
the  monarchial  opposition ;  the  faith  in  his  hon- 
esty, his  aims,  and  his  methods,  with  which  he 
inspired  not  only  the  republican  rank  and  file, 
but  stubborn  minds  like  those  of  Thiers,  Re- 
musat,  and  Dufaure ;  his  ceaseless  activity,  his 
absorbing  pursuit  of  the  great  end  in  view — the 
secure  establishment  of  the  republic  —  betrayed 
that  his  genius  for  party  leadership  was  not  less 
conspicuous  than  his  genius  for  eloquence  and 
for  vigorous  administration. 

The  republic,  indeed,  as  it  is  to-day,  owes  its 
very  existence  more  to  Gambetta  than  to  any 
other  one  man.  Step  by  step  he  won  advan- 
tages in  the  Assembly  over  a  bitter  monarchical 
majority.  He  made  the  utmost  of  the  dissen- 
sions   of   the    monarchists    among   themselves ; 


GAMBETTA.  85 

forced  them  to  proclaim  the  repubHc  because 
nothing  else  could  be  agreed  upon ;  compelled 
them  to  actually  elect  a  majority  of  republican 
life  senators  among  the  seventy-five  to  be  chosen 
by  the  Assembly.  Temporarily  discomfited  by 
the  resignation  of  Thiers  and  the  election  of  the 
monarchist  MacMahon  to  the  Presidency,  Gam- 
betta  carried  on  his  party  warfare  with  so  much 
vigor  and  wisdom  that  he  rendered  MacMahon 
helpless,  and  developed  the  fact  that  France  had 
become  republican  to  the  core  of  its  heart. 

When,  early  in  1879,  MacMahon  found  him- 
self at  last  compelled  to  resign,  Gambetta,  had 
he  chosen,  might  have  secured  the  Presidency  as 
the  Marshal's  successor.  But,  with  that  keen 
and  wise  foresight  for  which  he  is  remarkable, 
he  saw  that  the  time  was  not  yet  ripe ;  and, 
with  the  same  patriotic  self-abnegation  with 
which,  in  1 871,  he  had  laid  absolute  power  at 
the  feet  of  the  Assembly,  he  now  turned  away 
from  the  glittering  prize  which  might  easily  have 
been  his.  He  accepted,  instead  (to  the  surprise 
of  most  men),  the  chair  of  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies.  It  has  almost  seemed  as  if  Gambetta, 
throughout  his  romantic  public  career,  had  de- 
sired to  show  the  world  how  wide  is  the  versatility 


86  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

of  his  talents ;  to  prove  himself  brilliantly  capa- 
ble in  many  capacities.  As  has  already  been 
said,  his  conduct  as  the  presiding  officer  of  the 
most  turbulent  assemblage  in  the  world  has  been, 
by  universal  confession,  conspicuously  able.  He 
has  sustained  the  dignity  as  well  as  enforced  the 
power  of  the  chair.  He  has  compelled  respect* 
from  his  bitterest  and  most  violent  enemies; 
and  he  has  guided  business  and  debate  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  secure  every  deputy  his  right, 
and  every  interest  of  the  nation  its  hearing. 

Gambetta  has  proved  himself  to  be,  in  his 
later  career,  anything  but  an  impracticable  radi- 
cal. This  is  shown,  if  by  nothing  else,  by  the 
fact  that  he  succeeded  in  winning  the  confidence 
of  Thiers,  while  he  has  shaken  that  of  the  ex- 
tremists, Victor  Hugo  and  Louis  Blanc.  The  thor- 
oughly practical  character,  not  only  of  his  party 
leadership,  but  of  his  statesmanship,  has  been 
amply  demonstrated  over  and  over  again  during 
the  past  seven  difficult  years.  He  has  supported 
moderate  men  and  measures,  and  adopted 
moderate  methods.  He  is,  as  he  always  has 
been  from  early  youth  up,  a  republican  to  the 
heart's  core.  He  waged  uncompromising  war- 
fare, first  upon  the  second  empire,  then  upon 


GAME  ETTA.  87 

the  Bonapartism,  Legitimism,  and  Orleanism  of 
the  Assembly.  He  has  devoted  herculean 
labors  to  the  establishment  of  the  republic. 
There  can  be  no  sort  of  doubt  of  his  sincerity 
and  ardor  in  its  cause.  But  to  class  him  as  a 
socialist  or  a  communist,  to  suspect  him  of 
rash  schemes,  of  visionary  projects,  to  imagine 
that  he  would  introduce  into  the  republic  the 
maxims  of  Proudhon  or  the  ideas  of  Marat,  is 
to  utterly  misread  his  career.  There  is  every 
reason  to  suppose  that  Gambetta  sees  in  the 
conservative  democracy  of  the  United  States 
his  ideal  of  a  free  government.  He  would  have 
the  central  power  strong  enough  to  preserve 
order  and  to  dispense  equal  justice  to  all.  While 
no  French  statesman  is  more  emphatic  in  his 
denunciations  of  a  political  and  educating  church, 
Gambetta  is  far  from  seeking  to  inspire  a  crusade 
against  religion.  He  would  place  every  church 
on  an  equal  footing,  and  equally  exclude  every 
church  from  the  domain  of  politics.  He  would 
have  the  public  education  of  France  purely  sec- 
ular. In  these  opinions  he  is  at  one  with  many 
leading  and  by  no  means  revolutionary  English 
liberals,  and  agrees  with  Americans  of  a  conser- 
vative type.     At  first  suspected  of  a  secret  sym- 


88  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARA'. 

pathy  with  the  commune,  Gambetta  soon  purged 
himself  of  that  suspicion.  He  upheld  Thiers  in 
his  measures  against  the  insurrection,  and  even 
in  the  numerous  executions  on  the  field  of  Satory. 
Later  he  has  opposed  that  complete  amnesty  for 
which  eloquent  radicals  like  Louis  Blanc  have 
clamored.  He  supported  the  cabinet  of  the  ex- 
Orleanist  Dufaure,  and  still  more  heartily  has 
sustained  that  of  the  more  liberal  Waddington. 
Indeed,  Gambetta  has  for  several  years  held  the 
fate  of  ministries  in  the  palm  of  his  hand.  By  a 
signal  of  his  finger  he  might  at  any  moment  have 
overthrown  Dufaure ;  Waddington  or  de  Frey- 
cinet  could  not  have  remained  Premier  a  day  but 
for  the  sufferance  of  the  great  republican  chief. 
Ambition  might  have  prompted  Gambetta  more 
than  once  to  act  the  part  of  a  cabinet-maker ; 
but  his  devotion  to  the  republic,  and  his  keen 
perception  of  the  necessity  of  compromise,  of 
the  utility  of  stooping  to  conquer,  has  always 
held  his  personal  aspirations  in  effectual  check. 

In  personal  characteristics,  Gambetta  is  in 
many  respects  as  simple  and  democratic  as  he 
was  in  the  old  impecunious  days,  when  he  in- 
habited the  Paris  Bohemia,  and  vainly  awaited 
briefs.     At  that  time,  however,  the  out-at-elbows 


GAMBETTA.  89 

Student  and  lawyer  was,  we  fear,  a  roisterer  and 
reveller.  The  stories  of  his  escapades  and  dissi- 
pation, of  the  orgies  of  which  he  was  the  stormy- 
spirit,  and  the  lawlessness  of  the  offending  of 
which  he  was  the  head  and  front,  still  float  about 
the  clubs  and  caf^s.  He  was  rather  idle,  reck- 
less, fond  of  noisy  pleasures,  lavish  when  he  had 
that  with  which  to  lavish,  and  apparently  fast 
travelling  a  down-hill  road.  In  these  respects, 
at  least,  he  was  made  a  new  man  by  his  sudden 
leap  into  fame.  Politics  often  have  a  reforming 
influence  upon  dissipated  young  men  of  brains. 
It  is  said  that  the  Marquis  of  Hartington,  re- 
cently the  leader  of  the  English  Liberal  party,  and 
one  of  the  soundest  and  most  respected  of  Eng- 
lish statesmen,  was  weaned  from  headlong  dissi- 
pation by  the  firing  of  his  soul  with  political 
ambition.  His  father  compelled  him  to  go  into 
the  House  of  Commons ;  and  the  prizes  which 
there  glittered  before  his  eyes  sobered  him  for 
life.  In  like  manner  Gambetta  seems  to  have 
been  sobered  and  purified  by  finding  that,  by  an 
hour's  speech,  he  had  awakened  the  admiration 
and  homage  of  France.  He  was  then  thirty 
years  of  age ;  young  enough  to  have  his  head 
turned,   and   to    convert    his     recklessness    into 


90  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

almost  equally  ruinous  conceit.  But  Gambetta 
was  not  spoiled  by  sudden,  dazzling,  intoxicating 
success.  He  did  not  even  play  the  part  of 
Henry  V.,  and  discard  his  old  roistering  boon 
companions.  For  some  time  after,  he  was  still 
the  loud-tongued  oracle  of  the  Cafe  Procope. 
With  fees  now  coming  in  plentifully,  as  a  sub- 
stantial fruit  of  his  quick  fame,  he  still  lived 
modestly,  in  an  upper  apartment  of  the  musty 
Latin  quarter,  and  did  not  put  on  any  airs.  It 
may  be  that  the  celebrated  little  white  flower, 
always  now  to  be  seen  in  his  button-hole,  first 
made  its  appearance  there  in  the  dawn  of  his 
prosperous  days.  Otherwise,  alike  in  dress,  and 
in  democracy  of  manner,  he  continued  to  be,  as 
he  had  been,  unostentatious  and  simple. 

Gambetta  remained  a  poor  man  throughout 
his  deputyship,  his  dictatorship,  and  his  long 
career  in  the  Assembly  and  afterwards  in  the 
Chamber.  No  taint  of  corruptibility  or  dishon- 
esty ever  clung  to  his  skirts.  He  might  easily 
have  become  a  millionaire,  by  not  very  wide  de- 
partures from  the  recognized  code  of  political 
morality ;  but  down  to  the  time  that  he  moved 
into  the  palace  set  apart  for  the  President  of  the 
Chamber,  his  mode  of  life  was  that  of  a  man  in 


GAME  ETTA.  9 1 

very  moderate  circumstances.  It  is  well  known, 
too,  that  he  is  not  thrifty ;  that  he  spends  freely 
what  he  gets.  He  is  not  of  the  saving  sort. 
After  his  instalment  in  the  Presidential  palace, 
he  displayed  such  show  and  ostentation  as  he 
thinks  befitting  the  dignity  of  the  second  office 
of  the  republic  in  point  of  importance.  The 
receptions  he  gave,  indeed,  rivalled  in  brilliancy 
those  of  President  Grevy.  He  has  always  shown 
himself  a  genial  and  graceful  host,  and  his  style 
of  hospitality  would  not  have  disgraced  one  born 
in  the  purple  of  hereditary  rank. 

His  daily  life  as  a  legislative  prince  —  this 
Bohemian  son  of  a  rustic  tradesman  —  gives  an 
insight  into  his  personal  traits.  Like  many 
Frenchmen,  he  is  a  late  riser.  He  takes  a  cup 
of  coffee  and  a  roll  in  bed,  then  gets  up,  reads 
the  morning  papers,  and  goes  through  the  large 
pile  of  letters  that  await  him.  At  ten  o'clock 
he  envelops  his  portly  form  in  a  long  dressing- 
gown,  and  passes  into  a  small  cabinet,  where  he 
receives  the  crowd  of  satellites  and  friends  who 
daily  make  it  a  point  to  pay  their  court  to  the 
most  powerful  man  in  France. 

"  The  moment  the  conversation  becomes  in- 
teresting," says  Figaro,  describing  the  scene, 
"  the  door  opens  quietly,  and  a  man  with  a  severe 


92  CERTAIN  MEN  OE  MARK. 

countenance  enters  with  a  card,  'All  right,'  says 
Gambetta,  '  I  am  coming  down ;  '  and  he  tries 
to  continue  the  conversation.  But  the  man, 
placid  and  implacable,  remains  till  his  master  has 
changed  his  dressing-gown  for  a  more  solemn 
attire.  He  does  not  withdraw  till  Gambetta 
leaves  the  room.  From  this  moment  Gambetta 
devotes  himself  body  and  soul  to  politics.  It  is 
in  vain  that  Louis,  at  eleven  o'clock,  announces 
that  breakfast  is  served.  The  breakfast  must 
wait.  At  length,  when  Gambetta  tries  to  relish 
a  couple  of  fried  eggs,  his  favorite  dish,  the 
severe-looking  man  again  presents  himself,  like  a 
statue,  with  card  in  hand.  First  of  all,  Gambetta 
tries  not  to  see  this  household  Banquo.  He 
buries  his  nose  in  his  plate.  But  the  man  is  not 
to  be  balked ;  and,  presenting  the  card  with  one 
hand,  and  pointing  majestically  to  the  name  it 
bears  with  the  other,  he  still  stands  firm  at  his 
master's  side.  This  means  something  serious, 
and  Gambetta  obeys  Banquo.  Who  is  this  mys- 
terious person?  He  is  Pere  Dumangin,  an  old 
republican  —  the  watch-dog,  reminder,  the  time- 
piece of  his  master  and  friend.  When  Dumangin 
has  spoken,  the  matter  is  settled.  Gambetta  re- 
ceives only  those  who  please  Dumangin." 

Gambetta  is  a  bachelor ;  but  he  has  not  lived 


GAME  ETTA.  93 

SO  long  without  having  at  least  contemplated 
marriage.  The  story  of  his  engagement  to  an 
heiress  in  western  France,  and  its  sudden  break- 
ing-off,  give  us  a  fresh  glimpse  of  his  character. 
From  the  time  of  his  leaving  his  humble  home 
at  Cahors,  till  his  rise  to  the  highest  rank  of  pub- 
lic personages,  Gambetta  lived  with  a  faithful, 
loving,  devoted  aunt,  who  had  followed  him  to 
Paris,  and  who  made,  everywhere  he  went,  a 
pleasant  home  for  him.  She  was  at  once  his 
maid-of-all-work  and  his  congenial  companion ; 
and  he  was  as  deeply  attached  to  her  as  she  to 
him.  His  engagement  to  a  handsome  and  accom- 
plished girl,  with  a  dowry  of  seven  millions,  was 
a  shock  to  the  good  aunt;  but  she  yielded  grace- 
fully to  the  inevitable.  When  the  arrangements 
for  the  marriage  were  being  discussed,  however, 
the  young  lady  took  it  into  her  head  to  make  it 
a  condition  of  their  union  that  the  aunt  should 
be  excluded  from  the  new  establishment.  She 
"was  scarcely  elegant  enough  to  adorn  gilded 
salons.  Gambetta  explained  how  much  his  aunt 
had  been  to  him ;  the  rich  beauty  was  only  the 
more  obdurate.  Gambetta  took  up  his  hat,  and 
with  a  profound  bow,  "Adieu,"  said  he;  "we 
were  not  made  to  understand  each  other."  And 
the  marriage  was  put  off  forever. 


94  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

At  the  early  age  of  forty-one,  Gambetta  may 
be  said  to  stand  midway  in  a  career,  which,  if 
closed  now,  would  be  regarded  as  one  of  the 
most  striking,  romantic  and  successful  in  the 
annals  of  political  biography.  He  must  already 
be  confessed  to  be  a  great  orator,  an  able  prac- 
tical administrator,  a  consummate  party  leader, 
a  statesman  fertile  in/esources,  a  presiding  offi- 
cer of  rare  vigor,  tact,  and  mastery  over  public 
assemblies.  A  brilliant  future  seems  to  lie  before 
him.  Aside  from  his  eminent  capacity,  his  ser- 
vices to  the  republic,  which  owes  its  existence 
to  him  more  than  to  any  one  man,  entitle  him  to 
its  highest  .honors  when  the  fitting  time  shall 
come.  The  vicissitudes  of  public  life  in  France 
are  well  expressed  by  the  epigram,  that  in  that 
country  "  nothing  is  probable  except  the  unfore- 
seen." It  may  be  that  the  greatest  of  living 
Frenchmen  will  miss  the  Presidency,  as  in  this 
country  did  Webster  and  Clay,  But  all  present 
indications  point  to  the  probability  that  ere 
Gambetta  passes  the  ripe  prime  of  middle  age, 
he  will  be  elevated  to  the  seat  already  so  emi- 
nently adorned  by  Adolph  Thiers  and  Jules 
Grdvy,  and  which  he  is  fitted  to  adorn  none  the 
less  than  they. 


IV. 

BEACONSFIELD. 

''  I  ^HE  romance  of  politics  contains  no  more 
strange  and  striking  chapter  than  the  story 
of  the  career  of  Benjamin  DisraeH,  Earl  of  Bea- 
consfield.  It  is  not  improbable  that  that  career 
is  already  rounded  and  finished.  Lord  Beacons- 
field  is  in  his  seventy-fifth  year.  He  has  retired 
from  a  long  and  perplexing  tenure  of  power ; 
a  power  embracing  the  sway  of  a  vast  and  mighty 
Empire,  and  which  must  have  tried  the  mental 
energies  and  the  physical  strength  of  a  man 
young  and  hale.  But  Lord  Beaconsfield's  health 
has  for  years  been  feeble,  and  more  than  once 
his  life  has  seemed  imperilled  by  his  exhaust- 
ing labors.  It  is  little  likely,  therefore,  that  he 
will  resume  the  rule  which  he  held  with  such 
bold  and  audacious  purpose  for  the  six  years 
between  1874  and  1880.  What  years  he  has  yet 
to  live  will  perhaps  be  spent  in  the  august  re- 
pose of  the  House  of  Peers ;  that  house  in  which 
he  still  seems  out  of  place,  almost  an   intruder, 


96  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

yet  in  which  he  has  achieved  some  of  his  most 
notable  triumphs  of  eloquence  and  statecraft. 

This  supposably  rounded  romance,  therefore, 
may  be  observed  as  a  whole ;  and  so  looking  at 
it,  we  cannot  but  be  struck  by  its  similarity  to 
the  romance  of  the  skilful  novelist,  in  the  crown- 
ing glories  of  its  ending.  At  the  outset,  we  see 
a  young,  gay,  gilded  dandy,  who  has  written 
some  very  queer  novels  of  society,  is  petted  by 
the  half-aristocratic,  half-Bohemian  circle  of  Gore 
House,  is  a  curiosity  as  an  Anglicized  Jew,  has 
wit  and  fine  manners,  is  strikingly  handsome, 
and  altogether  a  bright  and  breezy  presence  in 
a  drawing-room.  Everybody  sees  that  he  has  a 
perfectly  imperturbable  audacity,  that  he  pro- 
poses to  make  his  way  in  the  fashionable,  not 
less  than  in  the  literary,  world ;  but  few  suspect, 
at  first,  that  he  dreams  of  political  distinction. 
His  grandfather  was  a  kindly  and  hospitable  old 
Italian  Jew,  who  used  to  give  neat  suppers  to 
men  of  note  at  Enfield.  His  father  was  a  book- 
ish scholar,  full  of  literary  research  and  anecdote, 
a  quiet  but  genial  old  man,  who  lived  in  pleasant 
simplicity  in  Bloomsbury,  No  one  imagined 
that  a  gay  young  fop,  with  the  despised  Hebrew 
blood    in   his  veins,  could   aim   higher  than  the 


BEACONSFIELD.  97 

pleasure  of  being  a  momentary  Hon  among  the 
West  End  fashionables.  To  be  feted  as  the 
author  of  "Vivian  Grey,"  to  be  admired  for 
the  exquisite  cut  of  his  coats,  the  sparkle  of  his 
jewelry,  and  the  harmonious  colors  of  his  cravat 
and  waistcoat  —  these  seemed  to  be  the  bounds 
of  his  ambition. 

Yet  had  that  superficially  reading  West  End 
coterie,  where  he  was  so  pleasantly  welcomed, 
perused  with  more  care  and  insight  the  novels 
concerning  which  they  so  generously  flattered 
him,  they  might  have  discovered  between  the 
lines  an  ambition  far  loftier  and  more  arrogant. 
This  truth  gradually  dawned  upon  his  circle  as 
novel  after  novel,  and  then  satire  after  satire,  ap- 
peared from  his  pen ;  each  of  which  took  on  a 
more  and  more  distinct  political  hue.  But 
almost  before  it  became  recognized  that  his  at- 
tention was  directed  to  politics,  he  suddenly 
appeared  as  a  candidate  for  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. With  "  sentiments  which  were  Tory, 
and  presentiments  which  were  Radical,"  he 
boldly  contested  the  borough  of  High  Wycombe 
with  no  less  an  antagonist  than  a  brother  of 
Earl  Grey,  then  prime  minister  of  England. 
Defeated  there,  a  few  months  later  he  again 
7 


98  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

appeared  in  the  field,  only  to  suffer,  first  at 
Marylebone,  and  then  at  Taunton,  two  more  dis- 
comfitures. Not  a  whit  daunted,  he  made  a 
further  struggle  to  win  a  seat  in  Parliament,  and 
this  time,  aided  by  powerful  friends,  he  at  last 
succeeded,  being  chosen  in  1837  ^  member  by 
the  borough  of  Maidstone.  Soon  after  this  tri- 
umph, he  was  introduced  to  Lord  Melbourne, 
who  had  now  become  Prime  Minister.  Lord 
Melbourne  looked  at  the  gorgeously  attired 
young  legislator,  with  his  glistening  curls  and  his 
large,  bright  black  eye,  with  a  feeling  of  mingled 
amusement  and  curiosity.  "  What  do  you  wish 
to  be?"  he  asked  him.  "Prime  Minister  of 
England,  my  lord,"  was  the  startling  and  auda- 
cious reply.  Lord  Melbourne  thought  the  an- 
swer an  epigram.  Disraeli  expressed  in  it  the 
whole  volume  of  his  political  ambition. 

It  is  not  at  all  my  purpose  to  follow  Benjamin 
Disraeli  through  that  brilliant  and  energetic 
career,  each  step  of  which,  as  now  appears, 
brought  him  nearer  the  lofty  goal  upon  which 
his  eyes  were  ever  fixed.  His  first  ignominious 
failure,  when  he  rose  to  address  his  maiden 
speech  to  the  House ;  his  patient  waiting  to  re- 
cover from  its  effect;    his  oratorical  triumph  on 


BEACONSFIELD.  99 

the  occasion  of  his  second  attempt;  his  quarrel 
with  Sir  Robert  Peel,  in  which  he  exhausted 
every  resource  of  the  bitterest  invective  to  over- 
whelm the  Tory  leader  with  humiliation ;  his 
passages-at-arms  with  O'Connell;  his  audacity 
in  seizing  upon  the  Tory  leadership  ;  the  surprise 
with  which  England  rubbed  her  eyes  and  stared 
to  see  him  her  chancellor  of  the  exchequer ;  his 
long-continued  and  magnificent  forensic  combats 
with  Gladstone ;  his  ascent  to  the  premiership  in 
1868,  and  his  courageous  gift  of  household  suf- 
frage to  the  people ;  his  later  triumphs  as  premier ; 
his  promotion  to  the  House  of  Lords  as  Earl  of 
Beaconsfield,  and  his  assumption  of  the  envied 
insignia  of  Knight  of  the  Garter ;  these  are  history, 
and  oft-repeated  history,  a  tale  told,  especially  of 
late,  with  copious  iteration,  and  with  every  degree 
of  friendly  panegyric  and  of  hostile  criticism. 

But  such  a  man,  with  a  career  so  strange,  an 
origin  so  alien  and  despised,  and  triumphs  so 
entirely  without  parallel  in  English  political  an- 
nals, must  always  be  an  extremely  interesting 
study.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  no  English  states- 
man, remote  or  modern,  has  been  the  subject  of 
so  many  diverse  surmises  and  theories,  has  been 
so  difficult  to  read  and  interpret,  or  has  given 


lOO  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

rise  to  so  many  utterly  contradictory  estimates, 
both  as  to  moral  and  intellectual  qualities,  as 
Benjamin  Disraeli.  He  is  scarcely  less  of  a  riddle 
now,  when  he  has  been  in  the  full  blaze  of  public 
notoriety  for  forty  years,  than  he  was  the  day 
that  he  entered  the  House,  with  confident,  dainty, 
and  dandified  step,  tripping  across  its  historic 
floor.  There  are  many  thousands  of  people  in 
England  to  whom  he  is  the  great  figure  of  the 
age ;  who  trust  him,  admire  him  with  unbounded 
enthusiasm,  unquestioningly  follow  him  in  paths 
however  mysterious,  and  believe  alike  in  his 
statesmanship  and  in  his  sincerity.  There  are 
other  thousands  to  whom  he  is  as  utterly  odious, 
who  look  upon  him  as  a  political  Mephistopheles, 
a  theatric  poser  in  statesmanship,  a  charlatan, 
absolutely  selfish  and  devoid  of  moral  feeling, 
who  would  with  untroubled  heart  sacrifice  Eng- 
land and  Englishmen  to  triumph  in  a  policy  and 
to  retain  a  hold  on  power. 

The  first  time  that  I  saw  Benjamin  Disraeli, 
now  Earl  of  Beaconsfield  and  Knight  of  the 
Garter,  was  in  the  House  of  Commons,  in  the 
early  summer  of  1863.  It  was  a  period  when 
the  relations  between  England  and  the  United 
States  were,  to  say  the  least,  somewhat  strained. 


BEACONSFIELD.  lOI 

The  Peterhoff  matter  had  well-nigh  brought  the 
two  countries  to  an  actual  rupture.  A  week 
before  I  had  been  at  Oxford,  and  one  night,  in 
one  of  the  many  cosey  inns  of  the  ancient  univer- 
sity city,  I  had  heard  college  proctors  talking 
excitedly  about  a  speech  that  Palmerston  had 
just  made,  foreshadowing  war  with  America. 
Palmerston  was  then  prime  minister,  Gladstone 
was  his  chancellor  of  the  exchequer.  Lord  Derby 
was  the  Tory  leader,  and  Disraeli  was  his  faithful 
and  brilliant  lieutenant  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. It  was  on  a  memorable  night  in  the 
House  that  I  first  visited  that  famous  assembly. 
Gladstone  was  to  make  one  of  his  greatest  efforts 
in  favor  of  taxing  the  great,  rich  public  charities. 
House,  lobby,  and  galleries  were  crowded.  It 
was  interesting  to  observe,  for  the  first  time,  the 
distinguished  assemblage  which  was  and  is  really 
the  governing  power  of  the  great  British  Empire. 
It  was  yet  more  interesting  to  hear  the  consum- 
mate orator  of  the  Liberals,  with  his  clear, 
silvery,  persuasive  voice,  pleading  that  Christ's 
Hospital  and  other  rich  charitable  corporations 
should  assume  their  share  of  the  financial  bur- 
dens of  the  state.  But  most  interesting  was  it, 
to  me  at  least,  to  look  along  the  crowded  benches 


102  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

which  hung  on  the  chancellor's  words  with 
breathless  interest,  and  to  note  the  faces  and 
bearing  of  the  famous  men  who  composed  the 
chief  adornments  of  the  body  and  of  British 
statesmanship. 

And  to  me,  the  most  remarkable  and  striking 
face  and  figure  of  all,  were  those  of  him  who  sat, 
almost  alone,  in  the  very  centre  of  the  front 
opposition  bench,  whose  hat  was  well  jammed 
down  over  his  eyes,  who  sat  motionless  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  Gladstone's  speech, 
and  who  seemed  rather  to  be  in  a  deep  reverie, 
or  perhaps  half-asleep,  than  attentive  to  what 
was  going  forward  in  the  House.  Now  and  then 
the  hat  would  be  removed  for  a  few  moments 
from  the  head ;  and  then  I  had  an  ample  op- 
portunity to  observe  the  features  of  the  man 
who,  all  things  considered,  had  even  then  reached 
the  position  of  the  most  successful  politician  of 
his  age. 

Let  me  describe  him  as  he  appeared  at  the 
age  of  fifty-seven.  The  first  impression  was  of 
his  wonderful  youthfulness.  At  the  distance 
where  he  sat  from  the  Speaker's  Gallery,  he 
looked  scarcely  more  than  thirty;  and  his  attire 
served  to  confirm  this  impression.    A  black  coat, 


BEACONSFIELD.  IO3 

buttoned  tightly  at  the  waist;  an  immaculate 
shirt  bosom ;  a  carefully  tied  necktie ;  large, 
light-gray  trousers,  cut  in  the  nick  of  the  fashion ; 
hair  glossily  black  and  curly,  betraying  the 
scrupulous  care  with  which  each  particular  curl 
must  have  been  arranged  in  its  place ;  large, 
rather  dreamy,  and  indifferent  black  eyes ;  a 
thick,  heavy,  Jewish  nose ;  a  large  mouth,  with 
thick,  colorless  lips;  a  longish  chin,  covered 
with  a  tuft  of  gray-black  beard ;  a  sallow  com- 
plexion, almost  deathly  sallow;  a  strong,  well- 
knit,  rather  high-shouldered  figure;  these  were 
the  external  features  that  attracted  the  cursory 
glance  of  the  eye.  It  has  been  said  that  Disraeli, 
leader  and  chieftain  as  he  is,  has  always  seemed 
a  man  alone  and  apart  from  his  colleagues ;  so 
un-English  that  he  has  not  been  able  to  fuse  with 
the  rest;  solitary  amid  all  the  hurly-burly  bustle 
of  politics ;  keeping  himself  within  himself;  with 
few  or  no  ardent  bosom  friends  ;  amiable,  patient, 
and  courteous,  perhaps,  but  maintaining  a  dis- 
tance between  himself  and  his  most  intimate 
advisers.  Looking  down  upon  him  as  he  sat  in 
the  House,  this  theory  appeared  to  be  confirmed 
by  superficial  observation.  He  sat  alone,  with  a 
space  between  him  and  the  next  man  on  either 


I04  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

side.  It  was  very  rarely  that  he  turned  to  speak 
to  this  or  that  one ;  then,  the  conversation  seemed 
almost  monosyllabic.  It  was  evident,  to  say  the 
least,  that  he  was  not  a  chatty  man  like  Palmer- 
ston,  nor  a  vehement  talker  like  Gladstone.  Closer 
scrutiny  made  it  apparent,  however,  that  he  was 
far  from  indifferent  about  what  was  going  for- 
ward. A  quiet  smile  crossed  his  face  as  Glad- 
stone, now  and  then,  went  rather  out  of  his  way 
to  direct  a  shaft  of  sarcasm  at  his  own  breast; 
and  when,  an  hour  or  two  after,  Disraeli  rose  to 
take  his  share  in  the  debate,  it  soon  became  clear 
that  all  that  had  been  before  said  had  been  care- 
fully fixed  in  his  mind.  This  imperturbability 
and  apparent  unconsciousness  of  what  is  going 
forward,  whether  it  be  affectation  or  tempera- 
ment, has  always  struck  lookers-on  in  the  House 
of  Lords  and  Commons.  "  However  fierce  the 
debate,"  says  one  of  them,  "or  heated  the  House, 
or  pressing  the  crisis,  there  sits  Disraeli,  occa- 
sionally looking  at  his  hands,  or  the  clock ; 
otherwise,  silent,  unmoved,  and  still.  Yet  an 
Indian  scout  could  not  keep  a  more  vigilant 
watch ;  and  immediately  an  opportunity  occurs 
he  is  on  his  legs,  boiling  with  real  or  affected 
indignation." 


BEACONSFIELD.  IO5 

There  never  spoke  an  orator  more  curious  and 
interesting  to  observe,  more  puzzling  to  estimate, 
more  entertaining  to  study.  After  the  House 
had  been  filled  and  was  still  echoing  with  the 
silvery  vehemence  and  trembling  earnestness  of 
Gladstone's  voice,  it  was  indeed  a  very  abrupt 
contrast  to  listen  to  the  more  quiet,  more  studied, 
more  even  and  steadily  sustained  and  carefully 
poised  periods  of  his  rival.  If  Disraeli's  first 
speech  in  the  House  forty  years  ago  was  the 
very  bathos  of  attempted  melodramatic  force, 
the  histrionic  air  and  study  of  effect  have  at  least 
never  since  been  lost.  It  is  clear  that  in  his 
own  un-English  and  unexampled  style,  Disraeli 
is  a  parliamentary  speaker  of  the  first  rank.  He 
never  thrills  an  audience  to  generous  enthusiasm, 
like  Bright ;  nor  has  he  the  strong  capacity  of 
Gladstone  to  strike  conviction  pressing  home 
to  the  minds  of  those  who  listen  to  him.  But 
he  is  superior  to  either  in  making  a  perfectly 
clear,  brief,  yet  exhaustive  parliamentary  state- 
ment. In  the  literary  perfection,  the  variety, 
the  polish  of  his  style,  it  would  be  hard  to  point 
out  his  equal.  His  self-possession  and  self-com- 
mand never  desert  him.  He  never  really  loses 
his  head  in  fine  frenzies  of  passion,  though  it  is 


I06  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

sometimes  his  cue  to  appear  to  do  so.  As  you 
listen  to  him,  you  cannot  but  feel  that  this 
singular  and  effective  eloquence  is  the  product 
of  long  and  patient  self-training ;  that  it  is  the 
outcome  of  a  lengthened  devotion  to  oratory  as 
an  art;  and  that  this  art  has  been  studied  with 
an  especial  view  to  its  use  in  the  British  House 
of  Commons.  Adroitness  in  the  management 
alike  of  thought  and  phrases,  is  a  trait  speedily 
recognized.  Each  is  suited  precisely  to  the 
speaker's  purpose  for  the  moment.  If  that  pur- 
pose is  to  lash  an  antagonist  into  a  fury,  or  to 
divert  him  from  the  issue,  you  will  have  a  quick 
succession  of  sparkling  epigrams  and  barbed 
shafts  of  ridicule.  Disraeli  is  a  master  of  all  the 
tortures  supplied  by  the  armory  of  rhetoric. 
For  years  he  was  able,  almost  at  will,  to  sting 
Gladstone  out  of  his  self-control ;  and  it  was 
always  a  source  of  extreme  irritation  to  Glad- 
stone, that  he  could  never  produce  a  like  effect 
upon  his  rival.  Indeed,  Disraeli  has  always  had 
a  habit  of  rather  obtrusively  showing  the  House 
that  he  was  perfect  master  of  himself  when  "  on 
his  legs."  It  has  been  related  that  on  one  occa- 
sion, when  in  the  midst  of  a  long  and  important 
speech,  he   stopped,  took   an   orange   from    his 


BEACONSFIELD.  10/ 

pocket,  punched  a  hole  in  it  with  his  knife,  and 
began  deHberately  to  suck  it;  and  continued  to 
do  so  at  intervals  during  the  rest  of  his  address. 
There  are  many  pecuharities  of  manner,  each  of 
which  seems  to  have  been  artistically  fixed  upon 
beforehand,  as  if  to  produce  its  especial  result. 
Invariably,  when  he  rises  to  speak,  he  wears  a 
slight  smile,  which  seems  to  hint  that  the  argu- 
ments on  the  other  side,  specious  as  they  seem, 
are  not  overwhelming,  and  are  about  to  be  effec- 
tively answered.  There  is  a  saucy  gleam  of  the 
black  eye,  too,  which  lends  aid  to  the  significance 
of  the  smile.  His  speech  is  full  of  rhetorical 
"  hits ; "  each  hit  is  accompanied  by  gestures 
extremely  expressive,  and  by  a  measuring  of  the 
tones  of  the  voice  so  as  to  produce  surprise  and 
instant  effect.  A  grimace  or  a  shrug  of  the 
shoulders  will  give  "point"  to  the  epigram;  and 
when  it  has  thus  been  delivered,  Disraeli  alone 
in  the  assemblage  will  preserve  an  impassive 
face,  while  every  one  is  laughing  and  cheering 
around  him.  At  other  times  he  ascends  to 
greater  heights  in  the  art  of  eloquence.  He  can 
evidently  warm  up  at  will ;  many  of  his  flights  of 
simile,  or  appeals,  or  apostrophes,  are  so  flowery 
that  they  come  to  the  very  verge  of  bombast. 


I08  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

and  escape  by  the  narrowest  line  from  passing 
into  bathos ;  but  the  line  is  never,  in  these  later 
and  riper  years,  actually  crossed.  A  happy  turn, 
a  fine  finishing  ofif,  always  saves  the  rhapsody, 
and  makes  it  effective,  Disraeli  certainly  has 
more  humor  than  either  of  the  two  orators  who 
have  so  long  disputed  the  palm  with  him.  Glad- 
stone, indeed,  has  no  humor,  and  that  of  Bright 
is  somewhat  grim  and  puritanic.  The  Tory  chief 
has  clearly  made  as  much  of  a  study  of  humor 
as  of  any  other  rhetorical  weapon.  To  quote 
again  the  writer  before  cited,  "  he  has  made 
himself  master  of  the  greatest  weakness  of  the 
House  of  Commons  —  its  love  of  a  good  laugh." 
No  living  English  orator  has  said  so  many  good 
things,  applied  so  many  apt  epithets,  that  have 
"  stuck."  His  happy  phrases,  his  well-considered 
jests,  upon  the  various  characters  of  the  House 
in  which  the  greater  part  of  his  political  career 
was  spent,  are  eagerly  enjoyed  still,  and  are  more 
numerous  than  those  uttered  by  any  other  pro- 
fessed wit  in  politics.  In  describing  Gladstone 
recently,  as  a  "  sophistical  rhetorician,  drowned 
in  the  exuberance  of  his  own  verbosity,"  he  came 
just  near  enough  the  truth  to  make  a  telling  hit, 
and  thereby  did  more  to  confirm  Tory  animosity 


BEACONSFIELD.  IO9 

towards  the  Liberal  leader,  than  if  he  had  ex- 
hausted hours  in  elaborate  denunciation  of  him. 
Many  of  his  neat  little  personal  witticisms  are 
still  afloat,  and  are  repeated  whenever  the  names 
of  the  victims  of  them  are  mentioned.  The 
"  Batavian  grace  "  of  Mr.  Beresford  Hope's  man- 
ner, the  "  want  of  finish "  in  Lord  Salisbury's 
invective,  the  description  of  Goldwin  Smith  as 
"  an  itinerant  spouter  of  stale  sedition,"  Sergeant 
Dowse's  "jovial  profligacy,"  will  long  be  repeated 
with  appreciative  chuckles  in  the  region  of  the 
Pall  Mall  clubs,  and  in  the  centres  of  Tory  re- 
unions. There  is  not  a  single  Liberal  leader 
whom  Disraeli  has  not  labelled  with  some  apt  and 
witty  designation,  which  has  clung  and  will 
always  cling  to  him,  as  long  as  he  is  a  figure  of 
British  politics.  Disraeli  has  shown,  too,  that 
he  can  wield  the  force  of  fierce  invective  quite 
as  vigorously  as  he  can  lighten  the  prosy  pro- 
ceedings of  parliament  by  airy  and  not  ill-natured 
humor.  His  onslaughts  on  Sir  Robert  Peel  were 
as  cruel  and  ferocious  as  they  were  powerful  and 
effective. 

When  on  his  feet,  Disraeli  is  more  liberal  in 
gesture  than  most  parliamentary  speakers.  He 
uses  his  hands  and  arms  freely,  and  often  sways 


no  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

his  body  forward,  as  if  bowing.  His  voice  is 
neither  harsh  nor  musical.  It  has  neither  the 
persuasive  tones  of  Gladstone,  nor  the  grating 
sounds  produced  by  Lord  Russell,  Lord  Lytton, 
and  some  other  English  orators.  He  seldom 
hesitates  for  a  word ;  but  sometimes  appears  to 
do  so,  evidently  to  increase  the  effect  of  what 
follows.  No  EngHsh  public  man  probably  more 
carefully  prepares  his  speeches.  There  is  ample 
evidence  of  study  and  polish  in  each  of  them. 
He  is  never  so  happy  in  a  debate  suddenly 
sprung  upon  him,  as  on  a  field  night  when  one 
party  delivers  deliberate  battle  to  the  other.  Let 
it  be  added  that  advancing  age  and  persistent 
ill  health  do  not  seem  to  have  diminished  his 
oratorical  powers.  His  last  speech  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  before  the  dissolution  of  the  parliament 
which  he  so  long  and  so  completely  swayed,  was 
as  audacious,  vigorous,  and  brilliant  as  any  he 
has  delivered  for  years.  It  bristled  with  bold 
statement,  bright  epigram,  and  energetic  defi- 
ance. He  has  always  been  a  better  after-dinner 
speaker  than  Gladstone ;  for  his  gifts  as  an  orator 
incline  him  to  delight  in  the  lighter  and  airier 
graces  of  the  art,  while  Gladstone  is  ever  too 
dcad-in-carnest  to  use  or  cultivate  them.     Dis- 


BEA  CONSFIELD.  1 1 1 

raeli's  speeches  at  the  dinners  of  the  Royal 
Academy,  and  at  the  annual  feasts  of  the  Lord 
Mayor  in  the  Guildhall,  will  long  be  remembered 
for  their  cheery  grace  and  pungent  wit. 

Disraeli's  statesmanship  will  no  doubt  be  a 
subject  of  warm  difference  of  opinion  among 
Englishmen.  His  inconsistency,  in  the  earlier 
years  of  his  public  life,  in  passing  rapidly  from  a 
strange  sort  of  Oriental  radicalism  into  the  ultima 
tJiule  of  Tory  belief,  and  in  outdoing  any  other 
Tory  leader  in  his  denunciations  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel  for  an  apostasy  prompted  by  patriotism,  is 
still  bitterly  criticised  by  his  Liberal  rivals,  es- 
pecially by  those  Liberals  who  were  once  Peel's 
devoted  followers.  His  attempts  to  restore  pro- 
tection as  the  economic  policy  of  England,  after 
accepting  the  dogma  of  free  trade,  are  still  re- 
membered. Perhaps  nothing  that  he  ever  did 
more  completely  disturbed  the  equanimity  of  his 
opponents  than  his  sudden  adoption  of  house- 
hold suffrage  as  the  basis  of  a  sweeping  electoral 
reform.  The  Liberals  had  tried  in  vain  for  years 
to  frame  a  reform  bill  that  would  be  acceptable 
to  the  House  and  the  country.  They  had  lost 
power  in  1866  by  offering  a  moderate  and  well- 
considcred   measure.      They  regarded   electoral 


112  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

reform  as  their  special  mission  and  function.  It 
never  entered  their  heads  that  on  their  own 
ground  they  would  be  distanced  by  a  Tory  chief, 
followed  by  a  Tory  party.  But  no  sooner  had 
Disraeli  found  himself  in  office  than,  as  he  him- 
self afterwards  airily  boasted  at  Edinburgh,  he 
began  "  to  educate  his  party."  It  was  no  com- 
mon triumph  of  political  tactics  to  bring  the 
stolid  Tory  squires  and  the  proud  Tory  lords  to 
assent  to  a  sweeping  extension  of  the  suffrage ; 
and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  Disraeli  was  the  only 
living  politician  who  could  have  done  it,  or  who 
would  even  have  been  bold  enough  to  try.  To 
"  steal  the  thunder  of  the  Whigs,"  however,  was 
quite  in  harmony  with  his  audacious,  adventur- 
ous nature ;  nor  could  those  who  admired  Peel, 
for  doing  precisely  the  same  thing  in  the  matter 
of  the  corn  laws,  very  loudly  blame  him.  What- 
ever may  be  thought  of  his  later  foreign  policy, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  accomplishment 
of  household  suffrage,  which  was  Disraeli's  own 
work,  and  in  a  large  measure  his  personal  victory, 
was  an  act  producing  great  and  most  beneficial 
results.  Were  his  political  fame  to  rest  upon 
that  alone,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  future  gener- 
ations, at  least,  can  deny  him  the  title  to  effective 


BE  A  CONSFIELD.  1 1 3 

and  substantial  statesmanship.  The  household 
sufifrage  reform  extended  the  suffrage  to  thou- 
sands of  the  lower  classes ;  and  for  this  reason 
the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  Disraeli's  being  able 
to  induce  the  Tories  to  accept  it  were  tremendous. 
By  patience,  by  tact,  by  appeal  to  the  ambition 
for  party  victory,  and  by  sheer  pluck,  he  over- 
came them.  He  predicted,  amid  the  jeers  of 
his  opponents,  that  among  the  working  classes 
there  was  a  strong  Tory  substratum.  The  pre- 
diction, strangely  as  it  sounded,  was  fulfilled 
when,  in  1874,  the  new  electorate  carried  Disraeli 
into  power  by  an  overwhelming  vote. 

Then  began  a  new  and  much  more  thrilling 
chapter  in  the  record  of  his  public  acts.  For 
the  first  time,  he  presided  over  a  cabinet  which 
was  supported  by  an  ample,  compact,  and  sub- 
missive majority  in  both  Houses  of  Parliament. 
His  rule  was  unfettered  and  unobstructed.  From 
the  beginning,  it  was  clear  that  his  bold  spirit 
and  strong  individuality  constituted  the  central 
and  controlling  force  of  the  administration.  He 
had  no  rival  in  influence  in  his  cabinet.  One  and 
all  were  his  subordinates  and  followers.  It  was 
emphatically  his  policy  which  was  pursued 
throughout  the  long  and  perplexing  crisis  of 
8 


114  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

the  Eastern  Question  in  its  later  phase ;  and 
those  of  the  cabinet — Lords  Derby  and  Carnar- 
von—  who  would  not  follow  his  policy  to  the 
end,  never  thought  of  contesting  his  authority  in 
that  body,  but  retired  from  it.  One  of  Disraeli's 
most  remarkable  feats,  in  recent  years,  has  been 
his  conversion  of  the  proud,  irritable,  and  arrogant 
Marquis  of  Salisbury  from  an  inveterate  personal 
foe  into  a  warm  friend  and  a  submissive  adherent. 
Despite  the  "  un-English "  reputation  which 
many  writers  have  succeeded  in  giving  Disraeli, 
it  can  scarcely  be  questioned  that  his  Eastern 
policy  was  thoroughly  English  in  its  precedents 
and  bearing.  He  seems  to  have  closely  followed 
in  the  footsteps  of  Wellington,  Peel,  and  Palmer- 
ston.  The  corner-stone  of  the  English  policy  in 
regard  to  the  Eastern  Question  has  been  for  fifty 
years  the  principle  that,  in  order  to  check  the 
aggression  of  Russia,  Turkey  must  be  preserved, 
defended,  and  propped  up.  Even  the  Liberals, 
including  Gladstone  and  Granville,  adhered  to 
this  principle  at  the  time  of  the  Crimean  war, 
and  have  only  within  a  few  years  drifted  away 
from  it.  It  animated  Disraeli's  course  through- 
out. Whether  effectually  or  not  —  this  is  a 
matter  still  to  be  decided  by  the  lapse  of  time 


BE  A  CONSFIELD.  I  I  5 

and  the  current  of  events  —  he  steadily  labored 
to  preserve  as  far  as  possible  the  power  of  the 
Sultan,  and  to  curb  as  far  as  possible  the  power 
of  the  Czar.  He  resolved,  moreover,  that  Eng- 
land should  no  longer  hold  aloof,  as  she  had 
done  in  the  days  of  Liberal  ascendancy,  from 
participation  in  continental  politics.  She  should 
resume  her  old  place  as  an  active  and  self-assert- 
ing great  power.  Her  voice  should  be  heard  in 
the  Areopagi  of  nations,  her  influence  felt  in 
every  international  concern.  "  The  honor  and 
power  of  the  Empire,"  this  was  the  brave  shib- 
boleth often  heard  in  his  mouth  and  the  mouths 
of  his  colleagues.  It  was  the  counterpart  to  the 
Liberal  motto  of  "  Retrenchment  and  Reform ;  " 
and  long  sounded  more  sweetly  in  the  people's 
ears. 

Success  has  attended  Disraeli's  efforts,  at  least 
so  far  as  to  bring  England  once  more  into  active 
relations  with  other  powers,  and  to  give  her  a 
more  com.manding  voice  in  the  direction  of 
European  events.  This  result  he  brought  about 
by  bold  and  often  surprising  and  theatrical 
courses.  The  creation  of  the  title  of  Empress  of 
India,  the  purchase  of  the  Suez  Canal  shares, 
the  importation  of  Hindoo  troops  into  the  Medi- 


Il6  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

terranean,  the  entrance  of  the  British  fleet  into 
the  Dardanelles,  and  the  acquisition  of  Cyprus, 
were  acts  the  wisdom  of  which  has  to  be  proved 
by  the  sequence  of  events  yet  to  occur,  but 
which,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  were  resolute  and 
striking  strokes  of  statesmanship.  Whether  Dis- 
raeli's Eastern  policy,  or  that  of  his  successors, 
will  prove  to  be  the  best  for  the  preservation  of 
the  British  Empire,  remains  still  a  problem  to  be 
solved  by  the  future. 

In  one  statesmanlike  quality  —  in  sagacious 
foresight  —  no  American,  at  least,  ought  to  un- 
derestimate Disraeli's  abilities.  Whatever  his 
motive,  he,  almost  alone  of  English  statesmen  of 
either  party,  favored  the  cause  of  the  North  in 
our  civil  war,  and  steadily,  even  at  the  darkest 
periods,  predicted  its  final  triumph.  When  Glad- 
stone was  eulogizing  Jefferson  Davis,  and  declar- 
ing that  he  had  made  "  an  independent  nation  ;  " 
when  Sir  John  Ramsden  was  exultingly  boasting 
that  "  the  republican  bubble  had  burst;"  when 
Palmerston  was  plotting  with  the  Emperor  Na- 
poleon, with  a  view  to  a  recognition  of  the 
Southern  confederacy;  when  Lord  John  Russell 
was  asserting  that  the  war  was  one  "  for  empire 
on  one  side  and  independence  on  the  other;" 


BEA  CONS  FIELD.  1 1  / 

when  Lords  Derby  and  Cranbourne  (the  latter 
now  Marquis  of  SaHsbury)  were  hotly  declaiming 
against  the  arrogance  of  the  North  in  attempting 
to  preserve  the  Union,  Benjamin  Disraeli  saw 
the  right,  and  foresaw  the  victory.  The  friendly 
feeling  he  displayed  towards  us  throughout  the 
war  found  most  eloquent  expression  in  noble 
speech,  when  the  assassination  of  Lincoln  thrilled 
Europe  as  well  as  America,  with  its  dreadful  shock. 

"  In  the  character  of  the  victim,"  he  declared, 
"  and  even  in  the  accessories  of  his  last  moments, 
there  is  something  so  homely  and  so  innocent, 
that  it  takes,  as  it  were,  the  subject  out  of  the 
pomp  of  history  and  the  ceremonial  of  diplo- 
macy ;  it  touches  the  heart  of  nations,  and  appeals 
to  the  domestic  sentiment  of  mankind." 

Then,  after  showing  that  the  assassination  of 
rulers  seldom  changes  the  history  of  mankind, 
and  remarking  that  Lincoln  had  "  fulfilled  his 
duty  with  simplicity  and  strength,"  he  thus  closed 
one  of  the  most  moving  and  evidently  heart-felt 
addresses  he  ever  made  :  — 

"  In  expressing  our  unaffected  and  profound 
sympathy  with  the  citizens  of  the  United  States 
at  the  untimely  end  of  their  elected  chief,  let  us 
not,  therefore,  sanction  any  feeling  of  depression ; 


I  l8  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

but  rather  let  us  express  a  fervent  hope  that 
from  out  of  the  awful  trials  of  the  last  four  years, 
of  which  not  the  least  is  this  violent  demise,  the 
various  populations  of  North  America  may  issue 
elevated  and  chastened,  rich  in  that  accumulated 
wisdom  and  strong  in  that  disciplined  energy 
which  a  young  nation  can  only  acquire  in  a  pro- 
tracted and  perilous  struggle.  Then  they  will 
be  enabled  not  only  to  renew  their  career  of 
power  and  prosperity,  but  they  will  renew  it  to 
contribute  to  the  general  happiness  of  mankind." 
Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  wisdom,  in 
many  respects,  of  Disraeli's  career  as  a  practical 
statesman,  there  can  be  but  one  opinion  as  to  his 
genius  for  party  leadership.  Herein  he  presents 
a  very  suggestive  contrast  to  Gladstone.  Not 
even  Palmerston,  with  all  his  bonliontie  and 
faculty  for  conciliation,  was  Disraeli's  equal  in 
this  respect.  The  English  government  is  organ- 
ically one  of  party.  No  statesman  can  be  com- 
pletely successful  unless  he  is  a  skilful  party 
leader;  and  this  leadership  demands  a  combina- 
tion of  qualities  which  it  is  not  very  frequent  to 
find  combined.  No  situation  more  emphatically 
needs  a  command  of  exhaustless  patience,  per- 
severance, and  pluck;  and  these  qualities  Disraeli 


BEA  CONSFIELD.  1 1 9 

showed  that  he  possessed,  to  a  remarkable  degree, 
at  a  very  early  period  of  his  public  career. 
Never  had  a  party  chief  more  formidable  dif- 
ficulties with  which  to  contend.  The  party 
which  he  aspired  to  lead,  and  upon  whom  he 
fairly  fixed  his  leadership  by  making  his  bril- 
liant talents  absolutely  necessary  to  it,  was,  of 
all  parties,  that  whose  prejudices  were  deepest 
against  his  race,  and  whose  contempt  oi parvenus 
and  self-made  men  was  the  most  inveterate.  Yet 
he  took  this  obstinate  and  haughty  party  in  hand, 
drilled,  massed,  and  "  educated  "  it,  and  so  fash- 
ioned its  line  of  action  that  he  brought  it  into 
power  and  sustained  it  there.  He  became  the 
irresistible  leader  of  a  compact  and  submissive 
party  organization,  which  has  acted  for  many 
years  under  his  inspiration  with  the  discipline, 
precision,  and  force  of  a  thoroughly  trained  army. 
Throughout  the  period  of  his  Tory  chiefship  he 
has  maintained  an  even  and  unruffled  patience, 
a  constant  good  temper,  and  an  unflagging  per- 
sistency. Thoroughly  capable  in  this  branch  of 
leadership,  he  has  been  able  to  supplement  it  in 
parliament  by  his  consummate  skill  in  debate, 
his  resources  as  an  orator,  and  his  adroitness  in 
party  tactics ;   by  his  audacity  in  attack,  and  his 


I20  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

ever  ready  and  equal  courage  in  orderly  retreat; 
by  his  sagacity  in  marking  out  plans  of  parlia- 
mentary campaigns,  his  assiduous  cultivation  of 
the  younger  and  rising  talents  in  his  ranks,  and 
the  inexhaustible  fertility  of  his  resources  in  the 
most  bitterly  contested  party  battles.  For  years 
it  has  been  recognized  that  no  other  Tory  chief 
was  possible  while  Disraeli  lived  and  remained 
in  public  life.  Many  a  time  he  with  difficulty 
saved  the  party  from  the  consequences  of  Lord 
Derby's  rashness,  and  the  timidity  and  narrow- 
ness of  his  lieutenants.  In  the  cabinet,  he  alone 
could  have  formed  the  connecting  bond  which 
so  long  held  statesmen  so  diverse  in  tempera- 
ment and  opinion  as  the  Marquis  of  Salisbury 
and  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  Gathorne  Hardy  and 
the  present  Lord  Derby.  In  the  art  of  concilia- 
tion, there  never  was  a  more  consummate  adept ; 
he  has  known  how  to  smooth  over  irritated 
susceptibilities,  to  soothe  ruffled  pride,  to  soften 
down  bitter  prejudices,  and  to  smother  threatened 
revolt,  with  a  hand  at  once  gentle  and  firm,  and 
the  influence  of  a  suavity  which  not  more 
charmed  than  it  imposed  the  will  which  prompted 
it.  The  Tory  party  of  this  generation  cannot 
hope  to  secure  such  another  leader.    If  he  retires, 


BE  A  CONSFIELD.  1 2  I 

content  with  his  earldom,  his  Garter,  his  triumph 
at  BerHn,  and  the  proud  consciousness  of  having 
for  six  years  brilHantly  ruled  the  mighty  Empire 
of  Britain,  it  is  highly  probable  that  his  party 
must  abide  for  years  in  the  old  shade  of  opposi- 
tion ;  for  the  near  future,  at  least,  seems  to  be 
secured  to  the  Liberals,  to  whose  power  a  con- 
summate Tory  leader  alone  would  be  dangerous. 
The  same  sparkle  of  social  wit  and  bright 
epigram  which  makes  Disraeli  so  attractive  an 
after-dinner  speaker,  gives  him  popularity  in  the 
amenities  of  private  life.  Amid  all  the  turmoil 
and  cares  of  a  long  and  stirring  public  career,  he 
has  never  lost  the  talent  of  making  himself 
agreeable  in  society,  which  he  so  carefully  culti- 
vated in  the  days  of  his  youth.  Essentially  a 
courtier,  he  has  made  himself  especially  agree- 
able to  the  Queen  and  the  royalties ;  and  he  is  a 
welcome  guest  in  those  country-house  gatherings 
which  are  so  delightful  a  feature  of  English  social 
life.  He  is  an  elegant  and  graceful  host;  and 
alien  as  he  is  called,  he  has  contrived  to  become 
thoroughly  and  aristocratically  English  in  this 
regard.  In  the  fine  old  manor  of  Hughenden, 
in  Buckinghamshire,  he  entertains  royal  princes 
and  ministerial  colleagues  with  equal  suavity  and 


122  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

genial  manner;  yet,  with  all  his  aptitude  and 
talent  for  society,  he  seems  most  often  —  especi- 
ally since  his  wife's  death  —  to  prefer  solitude, 
amid  his  books  and  papers,  with  the  sole  com- 
panionship of  one  who  is  at  once  his  most  inti- 
mate friend  and  his  private  secretary.^  For  the 
national  sports  of  Englishmen,  Disraeli  appears 
to  have  little  taste.  It  is  rarely  that  he  follows 
the  hounds  to  the  hunt,  or  shows  himself  on  the 
world-famous  racing  grounds ;  nor  does  he  in- 
cline to  such  methods  of  violent  physical  exercise 
as  delight  his  great  rival,  Gladstone.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  is  known  in  his  own  neighbor- 
hood as  a  model  landlord.  Considerate  towards 
his  tenantry,  entering  with  zest  into  the  interests 
of  the  farms,  making  his  appearance  familiarly 
at  the  harvest-homes,  Disraeli  thus  sets  an  ex- 
ample to  those  English  landed  magnates  who 
desert  their  acres  for  the  pleasures  of  the  great 
capitals.  His  married  life,  though  he  married  a 
lady  some  years  older  than  himself,  was  a  very 
happy  one  throughout  its  duration  of  forty  years. 
There  was  something  touching  and  noble  in  the 
way  in  which  he  always  referred  to  her  in  his 
public  addresses.     His  constant  and  chivalrous 

1  Montagu  Corry,  now  Lord  Rowton. 


BEA  CONSFIELD.  1 2  3 

devotion  to  her  was  often  remarked.  Once  he 
spoke  of  her,  in  a  speech  at  Hughenden,  as  the 
"  best  wife  in  England ; "  he  dedicated  his 
romance,  "  Sibyl,"  to  "  the  most  severe  of  critics, 
but  a  perfect  wife ;  "  he  declared,  in  an  address 
in  Scotland,  that  it  was  to  her  encouragement 
and  support  that  he  owed  his  eminence.  When 
the  Queen  offered  him  a  peerage  on  one  occasion, 
he  declined  it,  and  begged  that  if  any  such 
honor  were  to  be  conferred,  it  should  be  upon 
Mrs.  Disraeli ;  who  thereupon  was  created  Vis- 
countess Beaconsfield.  Her  death,  a  year  or 
two  before  his  second  premiership,  seemed  to 
overwhelm  him  with  a  grief  from  which  he  has 
perhaps  never  quite  recovered. 

In  closing  this  rapid  study  of  the  remarkable 
man  whose  name  has  been  so  often  in  men's 
mouths  during  the  past  six  years,  I  quote  what 
was  recently  and  truly  said  of  him  by  one  of  his 
admiring  fellow-countrymen :  — 

"  His  career  is  a  romance;  but  it  is  a  romance 
that  teaches  a  thousand  useful  and  noble  lessons, 
that  will  have  power,  in  times  when  the  party 
passions  of  to-day  shall  be  cold,  to  fire  many  a 
young  soul  with  the  highest  ambition,  and  to  fill 
many  a  tender  heart  with  sympathy  for  him 
whose  storv  it  records." 


V. 

CASTELAR. 

TT  THAT  is  to  be  the  fate  of  the  Latin  nations 
of  southern  Europe,  is  an  interesting  and 
curious  problem.  Are  they  even  now  sinking, 
more  or  less  gradually,  into  decrepitude  and 
decay?  Is  the  great  part  played  by  the  Latin 
races  in  the  world  nearly  played  out?  Has  em- 
pire in  war  and  letters  passed  away  forever  from 
the  Spaniard,  the  Italian,  and  the  Frenchman? 
Is  the  future  for  the  Teuton,  the  Scandinavian, 
the  Saxon,  and  the  Sclave?  And  are  the  Latin 
nations  sinking  into  the  condition  in  which  we 
now  see  their  predecessors  in  imperial  power  — 
into  the  condition  of  Phoenicia,  of  Egypt,  and  of 
Greece?  Or  will  they  become  revivified  by  the 
new  stimulus  of  liberty;  by  the  abandonment  of 
old  enthralments,  the  shaking  off  of  absolute 
kingship,  and  the  perhaps  still  more  binding 
despotism  of  priestcraft;  will  they  be  leavened 
by  democracy,  regain  their  savor  by  the  salt  of 
republicanism? 


CASTE  LA  R.  1 25 

Certain  it  is  that  for  a  long  time  the  Latin 
races  have  been  decHning  and  waning  under  the 
old  condition  of  things ;  that,  had  Bomba  reigns 
in  Italy,  rules  of  later  Ferdinands  and  Isabellas 
in  Spain,  and  Bourbon  incubi  in  France,  con- 
tinued, this  descent  would  have  gone  on.  No 
doubt,  too,  this  descent  has  been,  to  the  ob- 
server's eye,  arrested  by  the  new  life  infused 
by  revolution.  France  is  surely  to-day  better, 
stronger,  more  self-contained,  for  the  young  Re- 
public which  has  so  completely  altered  the  politi- 
cal aspect  of  things  during  the  last  seven  years. 
Will  this  improvement  continue  —  is  it  perma- 
nent and  become  organic?  Or  is  it  but  a  tem- 
porary delay  in  the  general  downward  course  of 
the  brilliant  and  thrifty  Gallic  race? 

Equally  apparent  is  it  that  Italy,  united  and 
become  constitutional,  refreshed  by  the  wise, 
temperate,  reasonable  rule  of  Victor  Emmanuel, 
whose  successor  has  had  the  sober  sense  to  fol- 
low in  his  father's  footsteps,  is  a  better,  and  in 
many  senses  a  more  prosperous  country  than  it 
was,  or  could  possibly  have  been,  under  Bomba 
and  the  Austrians  and  the  petty  Dukes.  But 
Italy,  too,  is  on  trial,  like  the  French.  In  the 
long   stretch    of    particular    events    and    special 


126  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

phases  in  the  progress  of  a  nation,  the  constitu- 
tionalism, the  reign  of  the  house  of  Savoy,  even 
the  unity  of  Italy,  may  be  but  bright  incidents, 
to  be  followed  by  anarchy  and  perhaps  reim- 
posed  tyranny  of  kings  and  priests. 

Of  these  Latin  races,  the  Spanish  are  behind 
their  brother  heirs  to  the  legacy  of  the  Roman 
conquerors  of  Europe,  Spain  seems  to  have 
been  marked  out  for  the  very  worst  scourges 
which  the  ingenuity  of  political  and  priestly 
tyrants  could  devise.  It  has  not  been  split  up, 
like  Italy,  into  fragments,  each  fragment  the  vic- 
tim of  a  different  despot.  It  has  not  been  so 
frightfully  desolated  by  hotly  raging  wars  and 
invasions  humiliating  the  people  in  the  dust,  as 
France.  Perhaps  Spain  to-day  would  be  better 
off  had  she  passed  through  these  fiery  furnaces. 
She  has  suffered  ills  perhaps  even  yet  more 
far-reaching  in  their  results,  penetrating  more 
deeply,  leaving  graver  and  more  obstinate  moral 
and  political  disease.  It  would  probably  have 
seemed  to  a  thoughtful  student,  twenty-five  years 
ago,  as  if  nothing  good  could  come  out  of  Spain. 
Such  a  student  would  have  been  puzzled  to 
recognize,  under  the  dismal,  gloomy,  brazen, 
corrupt  reign  of  Isabella,  the  Spain  which,  within 


C AS  TEL  A  R.  12/ 

the  period  of  a  single  century,  between  1540  and 
1640,  had  displayed  warrior  sovereigns  like 
Charles  the  Fifth  and  Philip  the  Second,  soldiers 
like  Alva,  conquerors  like  Pizarro,  painters  like 
Velasquez  and  Murillo,  churchmen  like  Loyola, 
and  writers  like  Cervantes  and  Calderon  de  la 
Barca.  Indeed  from  the  time  of  Calderon,  who 
died  in  1687,  down  to  very  recent  years,  Spanish 
history,  as  far  as  either  national  glory  or  intel- 
lectual activity  is  concerned,  presents  an  almost 
uniformly  dreary  blank.  Who  can  name  a  single 
Spanish  statesman  of  the  rank  of  Ximenes,  or 
any  Spanish  writer  or  painter  of  any  extended 
reputation  at  all,  who  lived  and  labored  in  the 
eighteenth  century?  Italy  had  at  least  Alfieri. 
France  teemed  with  keen,  inquiring,  brilliant 
minds.  But  of  Spanish  intellectual  effort,  of  any 
such  thing  as  searching  politico-philosophic  ac- 
tivity, it  would  be  hard  to  find  a  definite  stamp 
between  the  accession  of  Philip  the  Fifth  and 
the  deposition  of  Isabella  the  Second.  The  in- 
tellectual torpor  seemed  absolute;  and  out  of  a 
soil  so  drearily  barren,  how  could  we  expect  any 
excellent  intellectual  fruit  to  grow  and  thrive? 

Yet   it  is  true  that,  within  the  past  ten  years, 
signs   that    eloquence,   philosophy,   culture,  and 


128  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

political  wisdom  have  rather  been  dormant  than 
extinct  in  Spain,  have  here  and  there  pretty 
plainly  shown  themselves.  Certain  Spanish  fig- 
ures have  appeared,  who  have  astonished  men 
by  their  attitude,  dignity,  talent  and  sound  sense. 
And  when  such  figures  do  appear  in  a  nation's 
career,  and  make  themselves  seen,  heard,  lis- 
tened to  and  respected,  all  hope  of  that  nation 
cannot  be  lost.  That  the  art  of  eloquence  still 
survives  in  Spain,  that  enlightenment  in  its  very 
highest  intellectual  form  is  still  a  possibility 
there,  that  great  principles  of  government  and 
liberty  may  even  yet  find  nourishment  in  its  so 
long  sterile  soil,  may  be  seen  in  the  character 
and  career  of  Emilio  Castelar. 

It  is  curious  and  somewhat  mysterious  how 
this  professor  of  history,  young,  handsome,  and 
with  a  romantic  name,  came  forth  from  the 
cloistral  quiet  of  the  University  of  Madrid,  to 
become  at  one  time  a  stormy  petrel  of  street  re- 
volt, at  another  a  fervidly  eloquent  orator  in  the 
Cortes,  and  again  the  rather  impracticable  Presi- 
dent of  a  short-lived  republic.  He  burst  as 
suddenly  into  fame,  as  far  as  the  trans-Pyrenean 
world  was  concerned,  as  Gambctta  had  done  at 
Paris ;   and  all  at  once  the  world  was  shown  that 


CASTELAR.  1 29 

Spain   was    still    capable    of  producing  genius, 
learning,  and  political  foresight. 

Castelar  was  born  at  Alicante,  of  a  good  but 
not  noble  family,  in  1832,  At  forty-one  he  held 
the  chief  executive  power  of  Spain,  and  was  for 
a  short  time  its  absolute  dictator.  Now,  at 
forty-seven,  he  has  still,  undoubtedly,  a  brilliant 
career  before  him.  The  records  of  his  earlier 
years,  before  he  became  known  as  the  undaunted 
chief  of  the  republicans,  are  scant,  and  of  no 
large  interest.  He  went  up  to  the  University 
from  Alicante  in  his  teens ;  was  soon  known  as 
one  of  the  most  enthusiastic  of  its  students ;  as- 
sumed and  kept  the  head  of  his  various  classes ; 
betrayed  a  special  taste  for  history  and  political 
philosophy;  and  on  graduation  was  appointed 
an  instructor.  But  long  before  this  he  had 
plainly  declared  the  principles  accepted  by  his 
reason,  which  the  ripening  of  his  mind  and  his 
somewhat  rough  experience  in  life  seem  only 
to  have  confirmed.  At  the  age  of  sixteen  he 
harangued  a  Madrid  mob  with  such  surprising 
power  of  speech  that  he  became  an  object  of 
dread  to  the  government  itself.  In  that  harangue 
he  avowed  extreme  republican  opinions  ;  his  ap- 
peal to  the  people  was  hotly  revolutionary.  In- 
9 


130  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

deed,  Castelar  has  since  declared,  "  I  have  been 
a  conspirator  from  boyhottd."  Before  his  beard 
was  grown  he  was  consorting  with  insurgents, 
attending  secret  conclaves  held  in  dark  by- 
streets, writing  fiery  proclamations  to  be  posted 
in  the  dead  of  night  on  the  walls  of  Madrid,  and 
holding  correspondence  with  republicans  of  note 
in  other  lands.  But  conspiracy  in  Spain  is  not 
only  permanently  fashionable ;  it  does  not  there 
seem  in  the  least  to  affect  a  man's  standing,  or 
to  taint  his  personal  honor.  Every  Spanish 
statesman,  of  whatever  party,  has  been  a  con- 
spirator at  some  time  or  other.  When  O'Don- 
nell  was  in  power,  Espartero  conspired ;  when 
Espartero  was  in  power,  Narvaez  conspired. 
Serrano  and  Prim  conspired  against  the  throne ; 
Figueras  against  Serrano  and  Prim.  Royal  blood 
is  infected  with  this  mania.  The  Duke  of  Mont- 
pensier  has  been  a  life-long  conspirator;  and 
Don  Carlos  has  never  ceased  either  plotting  or 
rebelling. 

In  spite  of  Castelar's  republican  zeal,  he  was 
in  early  manhood  appointed  professor  of  his- 
tory in  the  University.  He  was  the  best  man 
in  Spain,  perhaps  in  Europe,  to  fill  that  chair; 
but  it  is  strange  how  it  came  to  pass  that  he  was 


CASTELAR.  I3I 

allowed  to  assume  it.  The  government  of  Isa- 
bella was  singularly  capricious  in  its  tolerance 
and  its  tyranny.  Towards  some  classes,  it  was 
as  bitterly  despotic  as  were  the  Philips ;  but  it 
saw,  apparently  without  protest,  the  election 
of  a  learned  rebel  to  the  chair  of  history. 
The  new  professor  by  no  means  ceased  from 
plotting  after  entering  upon  his  duties.  He 
taught  republicanism  and  revolution  in  his  very 
class-room.  He  gathered  about  him  the  ardent 
youths  of  the  University,  and  saturated  their 
receptive  minds  with  the  idea  and  principle  of 
political  liberty.  He  told  them,  with  an  accu- 
racy of  fact  and  a  correctness  of  interpretation 
which  in  a  Spaniard  was  nothing  less  than  mar- 
vellous, the  story  of  the  rise  and  progress  of  the 
free  republic  of  the  United  States ;  and  pointed 
to  it  and  its  constitution  as  the  model  which  he 
aspired  to  have  Spain  adopt.  He  argued  in 
favor  of  the  abolition  of  slavery,  of  a  confedera- 
tion of  Spanish  provinces,  abolition  of  the  tie 
between  Church  and  State,  universal  suffrage, 
free  education.  All  this  was  going  on  under  the 
very  eyes  of  Isabella's  ministers,  and  it  was  not 
stopped.  The  professor  was  not  content  to  show 
the  faith  that  was  in  him  by  mere  words  alone. 


132  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

He  was  still  consorting  with  conspirators,  the 
central  spirit  of  midnight  cabals.  Then  came  a 
day  of  revolt  in  the  streets  of  Madrid ;  and  in 
the  midst  of  the  mob  appeared  the  figure  of  the 
professor,  as  little  professorial  in  speech  and 
action  as  possible;  now  a  fervid  orator,  pouring 
out  language  of  incendiary  eloquence,  and  leading 
his  hot-headed  followers  boldly  to  barricade  and 
barracks.  We  should  be  somewhat  astonished 
to  hear  of  the  dean  of  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  or 
the  professor  of  moral  philosophy  at  Cambridge, 
leading  a  London  mob  to  an  attack  on  Bucking- 
ham Palace.  It  evidently  did  not  appear  strange, 
however,  to  the  Madrid  populace,  to  see  the  uni- 
versity expounder  of  history  in  full  insurrection. 
Marshal  Serrano  speedily  put  down  this  rising, 
which  was  the  forerunner  of  that  later  rising 
which  he  himself  successfully  led.  Castclar  was 
taken  prisoner  and  thrown  into  prison.  His  of- 
fence, however,  was  a  very  commonplace  and 
usual  one.  He  was  not  very  strictly  guarded, 
though  he  was  condemned  to  death.  By  the  aid 
of  friendly  rebels  outside,  he  soon,  with  little 
difficulty,  escaped.  He  went  to  Geneva  and 
thence  to  Paris,  at  both  of  which  places  he  was 
warmly  received    by  fellow-exiles.     Meanwhile, 


CASTELAR.  1 33 

he  kept  a  keen  watch  on  events  in  Spain ;  he 
guessed  what  was  coming.  The  time  of  waiting 
did  not  hang  heavily  on  his  hands,  for  he  had  a 
more  than  facile  pen.  Spain  has  not  produced 
in  modern  times  a  more  brilliant,  lucid  and  pro- 
lific writer.  He  had  already  served  a  long 
apprenticeship  in  journalism.  While  still  quietly 
pursuing  his  professorial  duties,  he  had  been  a 
frequent  contributor  to  no  less  than  four  Spanish 
newspapers,  in  all  of  which  he  luminously  and 
vigorously  argued  for  the  republican  cause. 
Now,  at  Paris,  he  wrote  for  English  and  French 
periodicals,  besides  sending  heavy  rolls  of  manu- 
script to  Madrid. 

At  the  first  forewarning  sound  of  the  revolu- 
tion of  1868,  Castelar  hurried  back  to  his  native 
land.  He  was  sorely  needed  by  his  eager  repub- 
lican countrymen,  and  he  instantly  responded  to 
their  call.  He  hoped  that  Serrano,  Prim,  and 
Topete  might  do  the  work  of  democracy.  Isa- 
bella's rule  had  become  insufferable  in  its  cor- 
ruption, degradation  and  imbecility,  even  for 
those  stout  old  soldiers  and  courtiers.  At  all 
events,  in  the  hurly-burly  of  civil  war,  the  oppor- 
tunity to  attempt  the  establishment  of  a  republic 
must  not  be  lost.     Castelar  was  welcomed  home 


134  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

with  the  wildest  enthusiasm,  and  with  Orense  and 
Figueras  at  once  took  the  lead  of  a  republican 
movement.  But  the  trio  of  old  soldiers  were,  at 
the  time,  too  much  for  these  radicals.  They  had 
the  army  and  navy  with  them,  while  Castelar  had 
with  him  only  the  mob  of  Madrid,  Barcelona  and 
a  few  other  large  towns ;  and  Madrid  is  not  to 
Spain  what  Paris  is  to  France.  Prim  became 
dictator,  with  the  understanding  that  he  was  to 
keep  the  seat  of  power  warm  until  a  sovereign  of 
the  pliant  sort  could  be  hunted  up  and  got  ready 
to  take  it.  But  at  the  same  time  the  republican 
chiefs  were  chosen  to  seats  in  the  new  Cortes. 
Castelar  sought  election  as  deputy  for  his  native 
town,  Alicante,  but  was  defeated  by  priestly 
influence.  While  urging  his  claims  at  Alicante, 
with  pardonable  pride,  he  suddenly  exclaimed, 
"  My  fellow-citizens,  my  name  is  sculptured  from 
the  Alps  to  the  Andes!"  His  rejection  there 
did  not  exclude  him  from  the  Cortes,  for  he 
was  soon  after  chosen  as  one  of  the  representa- 
tives of  the  capital. 

It  was  during  that  memorable  first  session  o^ 
the  revolutionary  legislature  that  Castelar  ap- 
peared in  his  full  stature  as  a  statesman  and  as 
an  orator.     It  was  one  thins?  to  fire  a  mob  with 


CASTE  LA  R.  1 35 

burning  appeals ;  another  to  discuss  grave  meas- 
ures, to  aid  in  shaping  a  new  constitution,  and 
to  produce  a  practical  effect  upon  a  sober  as- 
semblage composed  at  once  of  the  best  minds 
and  of  the  most  inveterate  prejudices  of  Spain. 
Yet  there  was  no  old  royalist  hidalgo  so  dull  and 
obstinate  as  not  to  recognize  at  once  the  splen- 
dor of  his  eloquence,  rich  with  the  ripest  and 
aptest  illustrations  drawn  from  vast  and  well- 
digested  lore,  or  the  broad  reach  of  his  political 
ideas,  which  comprehended  lessons  drawn  from 
the  experience  of  every  race,  ancient  and  mod- 
ern. With  a  small  minority  of  republican  col- 
leagues to  sustain  him  by  their  votes,  Castelar 
was  yet  a  formidable  power  in  the  constituent 
Cortes.  Prim,  with  all  his  force  of  brevity  and 
directness,  with  all  his  strong  sense  and  practical 
knowledge  of  politics,  found  out  very  early  that 
he  was  no  match  for  Castelar  in  debate  ;  and  the 
priest  orators  of  the  Cortes,  the  best,  as  a  rule, 
that  it  contained,  soon  evidently  shrank  from 
crossing  rhetorical  lances  with  him.  His  mis- 
sion in  this  Cortes  was  plain  —  to  get  the  con- 
stitution as  near  the  republican  form  and  spirit 
as  possible,  and  to  educate  Spaniards  to  a  faith 
in,  and  appreciation  of,  republican  institutions. 


136  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

As  each  grave  question  came  up,  Castelar  was 
found  ready  to  meet  it  with  a  solution  deduced 
from  his  own  poHtical  creed.  His  first  action 
was  to  insist  that  that  life-long  royal  conspirator, 
the  Duke  of  Montpensier,  should  be  removed 
from  the  command-in-chief  of  the  army.  Topete, 
one  of  the  trio  of  successful  revolutionists,  was 
known  to  favor  Montpensier's  elevation  to  the 
vacant  throne,  in  which  Prim  was  serving  as  a 
sort  of  warming-pan ;  and  it  was  suspected  that 
Prim  himself  was  not  averse  from  this  denoue- 
ment. Failing  to  attain  his  purpose,  Castelar 
next  fervidly  attacked  the  proposal  that  mon- 
archy was  the  form  of  government  desired  by 
the  nation.  Here  he  had  the  enemy  in  the  open 
field,  and  he  assailed  them  along  the  whole  line. 
Nothing  could  exceed  the  courage,  the  vigor, 
the  exhaustive  illustration,  the  infectious  warmth 
with  which  he  now  spoke.  The  speeches  which 
he  delivered  at  that  critical  moment  are  still 
clearly  remembered  and  often  quoted  by  Span- 
iards. He  painted  in  the  most  vivid  colors  the 
blight  which  monarchy  had  already  spread  over 
the  land ;  the  abasement  which  Spain,  under  the 
Bourbons,  had  long  ago  reached,  and  in  which 
she  still  remained.     "  Seftores,"  he  exclaimed  in 


CASTELAR.  1 37 

tones  of  passionate  indignation  and  sorrow, 
"  look  abroad  in  Spain  !  We  are  a  vast  charnel- 
house,  stretching  from  the  Pyrenees  to  the  Gulf 
of  Cadiz.  We  have  no  agriculture,  no  industry, 
no  trade ;  that  is  what  your  kings  have  done 
for  us !  "  Stretching  his  arm  toward  Italy,  he 
said,  "  In  Italy,  Garibaldi  held  a  crown  in  his 
hand  at  Naples.  Instead  of  destroying  it,  he 
gave  it  to  the  house  of  Savoy.  But  the  house 
on  whose  head  he  put  a  crown,  put  a  bullet  into 
his  body  at  Aspromonte,  and  a  deeper  one  into 
his  heart  at  Mentone  !  " 

But  Castelar  was  soon  to  rise  to  a  yet  loftier 
height  of  eloquence  than  that  of  his  speeches 
against  monarchy,  inspired  as  he  now  was  by  a 
yet  nobler  cause  than  that  of  giving  a  republican 
form  to  the  future  government.  This  was  the 
cause  of  religious  toleration.  The  "  last  ditch  " 
of  the  old-time  power  of  the  Romish  priesthood 
seems  to  be  in  Spain.  After  France  had  become 
alienated,  and  Austria  had  grown  cold,  Spain 
was  still  fervid  in  superstition,  intolerance,  and 
blind  devotion  to  the  Papal  crown.  The  Cortes 
swarmed  with  able,  and  subtle,  and  tireless  bishops 
and  priests.  Their  whole  force  and  influence 
were  bent  upon  preserving  the  traditional  pro- 


138  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

scription  of  their  church  and  orders.  With 
them  they  held  the  fractions  of  the  reactionary- 
parties  which  had  secured  a  representation  in  the 
chamber.  The  battle  between  the  elements  of 
progress  and  those  of  ecclesiastical  despotism 
raged  for  days.  It  strained  both  sides  to  their 
utmost  desperate  exertions,  Castelar  then  had 
to  meet,  one  after  another,  the  most  powerful 
clerical  orators  of  Spain ;  and  one  after  another 
he  put  them  completely  to  rout. 

Prim,  who  was  as  liberal  as  he  dared  to  be, 
proposed  a  constitutional  clause  establishing 
complete  religious  toleration  for  both  Spaniards 
and  foreigners;  and  on  this  question  the  whole 
body  of  republicans  rallied  enthusiastically  to 
his  side.  The  clause  was  assailed  by  the  clerical 
deputies,  who  declared  that  it  was  inspired  by 
atheists  and  iconoclasts.  This  charge  brought 
Castelar  promptly  to  his  feet.  He  launched  out 
in  an  address  which  is  said  to  have  overwhelmed 
all  sides  with  literally  speechless  admiration. 
Every  deputy  hung  spell-bound  on  his  lips.  He 
drew  upon  all  the  vast  resources  of  history  to 
emphasize  his  plea  that  religious  oppression 
should  be  forever  abolished  from  the  soil  of 
Spain.     In  the  deepest  colors  he   depicted   the 


CASTELAR.  1 39 

crushing  and  desolating  religious  oppressions  of 
Philip  the  Second,  and  held  up  degraded,  deso- 
lated and  impoverished  Spain  before  the  eyes  of 
his  breathless  auditors.  Then,  drawing  him- 
self up,  and  in  solemn  and  trembling  tones,  he 
ended  with  this  sublime  burst  of  passionate  elo- 
quence: — 

"  God  is  great  in  Sinai ;  the  thunder  precedes 
Him,  the  lightning  attends  Him,  the  light  en- 
shrouds Him,  the  earth  trembles,  the  mountains 
fall  in  fragments.  But  there  is  a  greater  God 
than  that.  On  Calvary,  nailed  to  a  cross, 
wounded,  thirsting,  dying.  He  prays,  '  Father, 
forgive  my  executioners,  pardon  my  persecu- 
tors, for  they  know  not  what  they  do  !  '  Great 
is  the  religion  of  power,  but  greater  is  the  reli- 
gion of  love.  Great  is  the  religion  of  implacable 
justice,  but  greater  is  the  religion  of  pardoning 
mercy.  And  I,  in  the  name  of  that  religion  — 
I,  in  the  name  of  the  Gospel  —  appeal  to  you, 
legislators  of  Spain,  to  place  in  the  front  of  your 
fundamental  constitution,  liberty,  equality,  fra- 
ternity with  all  mankind  !  " 

The  effect  of  this  rhapsody  upon  all  who  heard 
it  is  said  to  have  been  electric  and  amazing. 
The  deputies  sprang  to  their  feet,  as  if  moved 


I40  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

by  a  single  impulse  of  irrepressible  admiration. 
The  President  left  his  platform  to  embrace  the 
orator.  He  was  nearly  smothered  by  the  dem- 
onstrations of  his  friends.  The  session  was  sus- 
pended spontaneously,  without  formal  motion ; 
the  bishops  and  canons  could  not,  that  day,  find 
words  in  which  to  clothe  their  opposition. 

When,  several  days  after,  the  discussion  was 
resumed,  Castelar,  flushed  with  his  recent  tri- 
umph, again  returned  to  the  plea  for  religious 
liberty.  He  declared  himself  still  to  be  a  faith- 
ful Catholic  —  "  the  religion  typified  by  the 
marble  cross  that  stretches  its  holy  arms  over 
the  spot  most  sacred  of  all  the  earth  to  me  — 
the  tomb  of  my  mother !  "  Then  turning  to  the 
benches  where  the  priest-deputies  sat,  he  ex- 
claimed, quoting  the  words  of  Jesus  concerning 
toleration,  "  Gentlemen,  you  are  at  war  with  the 
Head  of  your  church  !  Were  I  a  priest,  I  would 
pray  God,  '  bless  these  legislators,  who  are  enact- 
ing on  the  earth  Thy  justice  and  Thy  grace  !'  " 

In  this  struggle  Castelar  happily  formed  one 
of  the  majority.  Toleration  was  decreed  as  an 
article  of  the  new  constitution,  by  a  vote  which, 
it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  was  greatly  swelled  by 
the  influence  of  his  splendid  eloquence.     In  so 


CASTELAR.  141 

using  it,  too,  Castelar  had  much  augmented  his 
own  political  authority.  Prim  courted  and  tried 
to  make  terms  with  him.  The  older  republican 
chiefs  willingly  admitted  him  to  a  full  equality 
with  themselves  in  the  councils  of  the  party.  A 
little  later,  he  displayed  the  wisdom  of  states- 
manship as  well  as  republican  ardor.  A  radical 
revolt  broke  out  in  Madrid.  Its  chiefs  and  insti- 
gators were  his  friends.  But  he  used  every 
effort  to  calm  the  storm  of  popular  fury,  and 
urged  upon  the  insurgents  patience  and  self-con- 
trol. Prim  was  savagely  indignant  at  the  revolt, 
and  proposed  to  suspend  liberty  and  to  resort  to 
martial  law.  Castelar  and  his  colleagues  met  this 
threat  by  another,  that  if  it  was  carried  out  they 
would  retire  from  the  Cortes.  Prim  appealed  to 
him  not  to  do  so,  and  made  a  further  threat. 
"  If  we  remain  in  the  Cortes,"  answered  Castelar, 
'*  it  will  be  from  patriotism  —  not  from  fear." 
Prim's  motion  was  carried ;  Castelar  and  his 
friends  retired ;  and  he  did  not  for  some  months 
reappear  in  his  seat. 

The  republicans  found  themselves,  for  a  period, 
helpless.  They  could  not  prevent  the  election 
of  the  Italian  prince  Amadeus  as  king;  but  they 
remained  quiet,  for  they  foresaw  that   his  rule 


142  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

would  soon  prove  a  failure.  The  sudden  abdi- 
cation of  Amadeus,  early  in  1873,  at  last  left  the 
way  open  to  Castelar,  Figueras,  and  Echegeray 
to  try  the  experiment  of  a  republic.  It  was  one 
of  those  peaceful  revolutions  that  sometimes  take 
the  whole  world  by  surprise  —  sudden,  bloodless, 
and  for  the  time  at  least,  complete.  The  repub- 
lic was  formally  declared  in  a  hitherto  monarchi- 
cal Cortes  by  a  vote  of  two  hundred  and  fifty-six 
to  thirty-two.  A  provisional  government  was  at 
once  created,  and  a  project  for  a  constituent  as- 
sembly matured.  Figueras,  a  remarkable  type 
of  character  for  a  Spaniard,  grave,  pure,  puri- 
tanical in  the  soberness  and  tenacity  of  his  re- 
publican faith,  a  man  of  fifty,  in  delicate  health, 
frank,  but  too  little  used  to  practical  politics,  was 
chosen  President  of  the  republic ;  and  Castelar 
became  his  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs.  But 
this  young  government,  composed  of  able  and 
eloquent  but  in  public  affairs  inexperienced  men, 
had  infinite  difficulties  with  which  to  contend. 
Spain  became  a  seething  vat  of  conspiracy. 
Serrano  and  Sagasta  began  to  plot ;  the  military 
men  were  jealous  and  disaffected ;  the  Mont- 
pensier  party  were  busy  seeking  an  opportunity 
to  seize    upon    power;    the   Isabellists   on    one 


CASTELAR.  1 43 

hand,  the  CarHsts  on  the  other,  continually 
threatened  the  existence  of  the  new  and  essen- 
tially experimental  regime.  Then  again,  the  ar- 
dent republican  ministers  tried  to  do  too  much. 
Sweeping  schemes  of  reform  teemed  in  their 
brains,  and  bloomed  into  measures  at  once  gener- 
ous and  impracticable.  To  abolish  slavery  in 
Cuba,  and  gradually  throughout  the  dominion  of 
Spain,  and  to  create  in  Spain  herself  a  federal 
government  after  the  pattern  of  the  United 
States,  were  only  two  of  the  many  purposes 
which  Castelar  was  eager,  in  the  moment  of  his 
authority,  to  carry  out.  The  republic  had  its 
hands  more  than  full  even  to  get  itself  accepted 
and  tolerated,  even  to  get  permission  to  put  itself 
on  trial.  Unhappily,  Castelar  —  who,  from  the 
first,  was  the  controlling  genius  —  aimed  to  meta- 
morphose Spanish  opinion,  custom,  form,  and 
aspirations  in  a  year's  time. 

In  a  few  months  the  strain  proved  too  much, 
at  least  for  the  frail-bodied  and,  in  action,  rather 
timid  Figueras.  In  August,  1873,  Castelar  ex- 
changed his  portfolio  for  the  presidential  chair 
of  the  new  Cortes ;  and  it  was  but  a  few  weeks 
later,  on  the  sixth  of  September,  that  Figueras 
resigned,  and  Castelar  was  elevated  to  the  presi- 


144  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

dency  of  the  republic.  His  first  act  on  assum- 
ing the  direction  of  the  executive  power  gave 
promise  of  an  at  least  energetic  administration. 
He  suddenly  dissolved  the  Cortes,  and  assumed 
the  dictatorship  of  Spain.  This  was  done  with 
the  honest  intent  to  serve  the  cause  of  republi- 
can liberty ;  but  how  sadly  Spanish  it  was ! 
After  all,  he  could  only  follow  in  the  track  of 
Prim  and  O'Donnell.  He  then  tried,  by  extraor- 
dinary measures,  to  subdue  the  Cuban  insur- 
rection on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Carlist  rebellion 
on  the  other.  But  he  failed,  as  the  generals 
would  not  heartily  co-operate  with  him.  Then 
the  dictator  was  forced  to  summon  a  new  Cortes 
into  existence.  This  was  opening  the  jar  which 
let  out  upon  him  the  giant  who  was  destined  to 
crush  him.  The  Chamber  met  on  the  first  of 
January ;  its  first  act  was  to  pass  a  vote  of  want 
of  confidence  in  the  President;  its  next,  to  re- 
ceive and  accept  his  resignation.  Then  General 
Pavia  captured  the  government  with  his  troopers, 
sent  the  astonished  legislators  about  their  busi- 
ness, gave  the  dictatorship  to  Serrano,  and  the 
republic  had  vanished. 

It  would  be  unjust  to  pass  a  very  harsh  judg- 
ment on  Castelar's  brief  Presidency.      He  was 


CASTELAR. 


145 


honest,  ardent,  full  of  faith,  intensely  patriotic,  and 
full  of  energy.  He  did  not  measure  at  their  true 
magnitude  the  difficulties  that  confronted  him  on 
every  side.  He  overestimated  the  intelligence  and 
the  political  sense  of  Spaniards.  He  sadly  wanted 
experience  in  office.  He  was  betrayed  by  jeal- 
ousies and  plottings  in  his  own  party.  He  was 
eager  to  go  too  fast.  He  fell  sooner  than  he 
might,  from  excess  of  zeal ;  however  able  and 
practical,  he  must,  in  Spain  at  that  time,  have 
fallen  later,  if  not  sooner.  The  experiment  was 
not  a  success ;  but  it  may  be  said  that  perhaps 
it  has  left  a  germ  out  of  which  success  may 
some  time  bud  and  bloom.  Spain  is  more  likely 
to  become  a  republic  from  the  fact  that  it  has 
been  one. 

When  the  dictatorship  of  Serrano  gave  way  to 
the  Bourbon  restoration  in  the  person  of  Alfonso, 
Castclar  retired  for  a  while  from  political  life, 
resigned  his  professorship  in  the  University,  and 
took  up  his  residence  at  Geneva.  After  remain- 
ing there  a  year,  however,  he  returned  to  Spain, 
and  once  more  took  his  seat  in  the  Cortes  as  the 
representative  of  the  city  of  Madrid.  This  seat 
he  still  holds.  At  the  age  of  forty-eight, 
Castelar  still  has  doubtless  a  brilliant  career  in 


146  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

scholarship  and  letters,  if  not  in  politics,  before 
him.  Indeed,  while  in  the  midst  of  the  political- 
hurly-burly,  he  has  never,  except  at  short  inter- 
vals, allowed  his  attention  to  altogether  stray 
from  his  favorite  studies  and  literary  labors. 
While  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  many  articles 
from  his  brilliant  pen  appeared  in  English  and 
other  periodicals ;  one  in  particular  on  his  chief, 
Figueras,  was  read  with  especial  admiration  in 
the  pages  of  the  Fortnightly  Reviciu.  His  range 
of  literary  production  has  been  by  no  means 
confined  to  political  studies.  Besides  such  works 
as  "  Democratic  Ideas  "  and  "  The  Republican 
Movement  in  Europe,"  he  has  published  books 
on  "  Popular  Legends,"  "  Civilization  in  the  First 
Five  Centuries  of  Christianity,"  "  Celebrities  of 
the  World  of  Letters,"  and  a  most  graphic  de- 
scription of  "  Old  Rome  and  New  Italy."  It  is  a 
matter  of  special  interest  to  Americans  to  know 
how  profound  and  appreciative  a  study  Castelar 
has  made  of  our  institutions.  There  is  some- 
thing marvellous  in  the  intimacy  of  his  knowl- 
edge and  the  accuracy  of  his  interpretation  of 
them.  Without  ever  having  crossed  the  Atlan- 
tic, he  seems,  by  the  intuition  of  sympathetic 
genius,  to  have  caught  their  very  spirit  as  success- 


CASTELAR.  1 47 

fully  as  did  De  Tocqueville  himself.  Both  in  his 
speeches  in  the  Cortes  and  in  the  products  of  his 
pen,  he  has  constantly  referred  to  the  United 
States  as  the  example  he  would  have  Spain  set 
before  herself;  and  many  of  his  most  forcible 
illustrations  have  been  drawn  from  the  same 
source  of  political  knowledge,  Castelar  seems 
to  have  been  especially  struck  by  the  guarantees 
of  order  and  liberty  afforded  by  the  federative 
feature  of  our  government.  While  in  office,  he 
made  a  bold  but  futile  attempt  to  introduce  it 
into  Spain.  He  imagined  that,  with  the  local 
peculiarities  and  dissimilarities  to  be  found 
among  the  Basques  of  the  Pyrenees,  the  Cas- 
tilians  of  central  Spain,  and  the  Granadans  and 
Andalusians  of  the  South,  their  veins  darkened 
and  heated  by  a  tinge  of  the  Moorish  blood,  the 
federative  principle,  affording  at  once  local  self- 
control  and  a  central  bond  of  union,  would  be 
likely  to  insure  the  endurance  of  the  young  re- 
public. It  was  a  dream  which  may  be  realized 
sometime  in  the  future.  What  is  especially  strik- 
ing is  the  high  enlightenment  of  Castelar's  views 
and  government;  the  astonishing  historic  lore  he 
has  betrayed,  ranging  from  Russia  to  North  and 
South   America,  from   Spain   to  the  far  Orient, 


148  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

including  a  profound  knowledge  of  the  sources 
of  the  Bible,  and  an  easy  familiarity  with  every 
political  system  that  has  prevailed  in  the  world 
from  the  most  remote  to  the  most  recent  periods. 
He  has,  besides,  a  memory  of  which  Macaulay 
might  have  been  jealous,  and  a  power  of  atten- 
tion which  Sir  William  Hamilton  would  scarcely 
fail  to  recognize  as  genius. 

As  an  orator,  Castelar  probably  has  in  Gam- 
betta  his  only  rival  in  continental  Europe.  He 
has  been  called  "  the  Wendell  Phillips  of  Spain." 
Colonel  John  Hay,  who  was  our  Secretary  of 
Legation  at  Madrid  during  the  brief  career  of 
the  republic,  and  who  knew  Castelar  intimately, 
says  of  his  eloquence :  "  There  is  something 
superhuman  in  his  delivery.  His  speech  is  like 
a  torrent  in  its  inconceivable  fluency,  like  a  raging 
fire  in  its  brilliancy  of  color  and  terrible  energy 
of  passion.  His  action  is  most  energetic  and 
impassioned.  The  whole  man  talks,  from  his 
head  to  his  feet."  And  if  he  rivals  Gambetta  in 
the  fluency,  the  fire  and  the  persuasiveness  of 
his  manner,  in  certain  respects  —  in  the  richness 
and  fulness  of  his  historical  illustrations,  in  the 
glowing  splendor  and  inexhaustible  resources  of 
his  rhetoric,  and  in  the  cosmopolitan  breadth  of 


CASTE  LAN.  1 49 

his  ideas  —  he  certainly  surpasses  the  great 
French  tribune.  Some  quotations  from  his 
speeches  in  the  Cortes  have  been  given ;  but 
these  can  only  give  an  inadequate  impression  of 
his  oratorical  powers.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  he 
never  spoke,  even  to  an  audience  deadly  hostile 
to  his  cause,  without  holding  every  mind  en- 
thralled under  his  magic  spell. 

Castelar  does  not,  in  his  personal  appearance, 
belie  the  brilliancy  of  his  intellectual  or  the 
warmth  and  nobility  of  his  moral  qualities. 
Colonel  Hay  thinks  that  he  resembles  Shake- 
speare, as  portrayed  in  marble  by  a  sculptor  of 
the  present  century.  "  He  reminds  you  con- 
stantly," he  says,  "  of  Chantrey's  bust  of  the 
greatest  of  the  sons  of  men.  The  same  pure 
oval  outline,  the  arched  eyebrows,  the  piled-up 
dome  of  forehead  stretching  outward  from  the 
eyes,  until  the  glossy  black  hair,  seeing  the  hope- 
lessness of  disputing  the  field,  has  retired  dis- 
couraged to  the  back  of  the  head."  It  may  be 
inferred  from  this  that  Castelar's  personal  ap- 
pearance is  prepossessing.  Of  medium  height, 
or  perhaps  a  little  below  medium  height,  his 
shoulders  are  broad,  his  chest  is  deep,  and  his 
bearing  of  the  body  is  commanding.     His  face 


150  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

is  a  long  oval,  after  the  Spanish  type ;  the  only 
beard  worn  is  a  long  sweeping  mustache,  dark, 
glossy  and  evidently  carefully  cultivated,  which 
nearly  covers  the  weakest  feature  of  the  face  — 
the  mouth.  It  is  not  a  mouth  from  which  one 
infers  a  very  great  amount  of  firmness  of  char- 
acter. The  complexion  is  a  dark,  clear,  smooth 
olive.  The  chin  shares  with  the  mouth  the  lack 
of  strength  which  we  usually  expect  to  see  in 
the  countenance  of  a  man  of  action  —  especially 
in  a  revolutionary  chief;  but  it  is  handsomely 
smooth  and  round.  The  forehead,  while  lofty, 
is  rather  narrow,  and  the  eyes  are  expressively 
large,  full,  and  dark,  and  give  its  tone  to  the 
whole  face.  They  are  the  eyes  of  a  poet,  an 
orator,  a  man  of  keen  sensibility,  a  theorizer,  a 
dreamer  of  mystical  utopianisms.  His  manner 
is  simple,  dignified,  and  his  gestures  are  expres- 
sive, quick,  natural  and  nervous.  When  talk- 
ing, the  mobility  of  his  features  adds  to  the  elo- 
quence of  his  words.  In  attire,  Castelar  is  little 
heedful  of  appearances.  His  dress  is  careless, 
almost  slovenly ;  and  this  was  at  one  time  a  pro- 
lific subject  of  the  satire  of  his  enemies. 

Castelar's   mode   of  living   has    always    been 
simple,  modest,  economical,  after  what  he  con- 


CASTELAR.  1 5  I 

ceives  to  be  a  republican  fashion.  Even  when 
President  of  the  repubhc,  he  failed  to  assume 
any  of  the  state  which  might  naturally  be  sup- 
posed to  be  appropriate  to  that  station.  A  single 
soldier  guarded  the  entrance  to  the  presidential 
mansion ;  the  President,  who  is  a  bachelor,  lived 
upon  the  third  floor,  in  the  apartment  of  his 
sister  and  brother-in-law.  Miss  Kate  Field,  in 
"  Ten  Days  in  Spain,"  thus  describes  her  visit  to 
this  apartment :  — 

"  On  ringing  the  bell,  a  man  without  livery 
appeared.  Senor  Castelar  would  be  disengaged 
shortly.  Nothing  could  be  plainer  than  the  two 
small  rooms  into  which  I  was  ushered.  Engrav- 
ings of  the  Spanish  masters  hung  upon  the  walls. 
Besides  these,  a  bronze  statuette  of  Don  Quix- 
ote, another  of  Mirabeau,  a  few  books,  and  an 
enormous  bouquet,  were  the  sole  ornaments  of 
the  apartment." 

In  private  life,  Castelar  is  respected  for  the 
severity  of  his  tastes  and  correctness  of  his 
habits,  and  is  beloved  for  the  sweetness,  the 
amiability,  the  accessibility,  and  the  unaffected 
fervor  of  his  nature.  His  resemblance  to  Gam- 
betta  as  an  impassioned  orator  is  not  greater 
than  his  resemblance  to  Gambctta  as  an  incor- 


152  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

ruptible  tribune  of  the  people,  living  (as  Gam- 
betta  lived  down  to  the  period  of  his  assumption 
of  the  Presidency  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies) 
in  modest  lodgings,  dressing  with  almost  affected 
carelessness,  and  either  having  or  assuming  a 
democratic  manner  with  everybody.  On  the 
other  hand,  Castelar  lacks  evidently  what  we 
should  call  the  "  grit "  of  Gambetta ;  his  immense 
ability  to  direct  events ;  his  consummate  tact  as 
well  as  vigor  in  the  use  of  the  weapons  of  prac- 
tical politics.  He  is,  besides,  more  of  a  bookish 
man  than  Gambetta;  fonder  of  literature,  and  a 
far  riper  product  of  long-continued  self-culture. 

His  voice  is  less  often  heard  in  the  Cortes  than 
formerly;  and  it  seems  doubtful,  even  should 
the  republic  be  restored,  whether  Castelar  would 
be  its  directing  spirit.  But  he  is  still,  and  will 
always  be,  the  centre  of  a  devoted  group  of 
political  adherents  who  love,  trust,  and  follow 
him.  His  task  would  seem  rather  to  educate 
Spaniards  in  republicanism  than  to  guide  the 
helm  after  it  has  been  attained ;  to  illustrate  it  by 
his  vast  learning  and  his  matchless  eloquence, 
rather  than  to  frame  its  codes  and  execute  its 
mandates.  He  by  no  means  despairs  of  the 
cause  in  which  he  was  at  one  time  the  prophet, 


CASTE  LA  R.  1 53 

and  at  another  the  martyr ;  he  regards  the  mon- 
archy as  a  temporary  makeshift  and  the  repub- 
Hc  as  certain  to  return  in  due  time.  Meanwhile, 
his  repubhcan  preaching  through  the  press,  at 
the  weekly  reunions  that  are  held  at  his  house, 
and  in  quiet  conferences  here  and  there,  goes  on 
bravely  and  ceaselessly.  Such  a  man  is  capable 
of  leavening  a  large  lump  of  Spanish  ignorance 
and  prejudice;  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  his 
name  will  live  in  history  as  at  least  the  founder 
of  the  republican  idea  in  the  so  long  despot- 
ridden  and  priest-ridden  Iberian  peninsula. 


VI. 

VICTOR   HUGO. 

/^N  a  certain  dismal,  drizzly  afternoon  in  Sep- 
tember, 1870,  a  large  crowd  assembled,  in 
spite  of  the  inclement  weather,  at  the  Northern 
railway-station  in  Paris.  It  was  an  eager,  expect- 
ant crowd ;  mostly  in  the  blouse  of  the  lower 
orders,  though  here  and  there  were  well-dressed 
men,  and  men  of  distinguished  appearance  and 
presence.  Paris  was  at  that  moment  in  deep 
mourning.  Sedan  had  just  been  lost;  the  effort 
to  bar  the  German  flood  of  invasion  had  failed ; 
and  the  enemy  was  now  known  to  be  swarm- 
ing towards  the  dismayed  and  anarchy-stricken 
capital. 

After  the  crowd  had  waited  till  the  fine  rain 
had  penetrated  to  their  skins,  a  long  train  rolled 
into  the  station.  A  part  of  it,  however,  remained 
outside  the  building  when  it  stopped;  and  to 
this  part  the  crowd  hastily  huddled.  In  another 
moment  a  loud,  enthusiastic  cheer  resounded  in 
the  air.    Brawny  arms  were  stretched  out  toward 


VICTOR  HUGO.  155 

the  platform  near  one  of  the  cars ;  hats  were 
waved  convulsively ;  the  crowd  became  a  solid, 
compact  mass  as  near  this  spot  as  possible. 

An  old  man,  with  bare,  gray  head  and  flushed 
face,  stood  upon  the  platform.  His  chest  heaved 
with  emotion.  He  waved  his  hands  nervously 
towards  those  who  had  come  to  welcome  him. 
He  held  his  head  high,  as  if  proud  to  be  so 
greeted :  and  waited  for  the  cheers  to  subside 
before  he  opened  his  mouth  to  speak. 

The  venerable  face  and  figure  were  well  worth 
observing.  The  remarkable  feature  of  the  form 
was  its  proud  erectness,  though  sixty-five  years 
of  a  life  full  of  vicissitude  rested  upon  it.  Of  me- 
dium height,  the  figure  was  thick-set  and  solid  ;  a 
strong,  healthy  one,  the  result  of  life-long  tem- 
perance and  plenty  of  physical  exercise.  The 
head  was  round,  the  forehead  high,  and  arched, 
and  white,  the  face  a  broad  oval ;  the  hair  was 
cut  short  and  of  snowy  whiteness,  the  beard  and 
mustache  were  also  cropped  close,  gray,  and  fast 
whitening.  The  complexion  told  a  cheerful  tale 
of  ruddy  health  and  moderateness  of  habit;  it 
has  been  described  as  that  of  "  a  ripe  winter 
apple ;  "  fair  and  rosy  as  a  child's,  and  as  yet 
but  little  wrinkled.  The  most  beautiful  feature  was 


156  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

the  eye,  —  large,  jet-black,  magnificently  brilliant, 
earnest,  with  the  fire  of  imagination  and  genius 
burning  brightly  in  it;  yet,  as  he  looked  down 
upon  his  welcomers,  kindly,  paternal,  moist  with 
the  profoundest  emotion.  This  eye  lighted  up 
the  whole  face,  and  made  it  an  irresistibly  attrac- 
tive one.  It  was  not,  perhaps,  what  would  be 
called  a  handsome  face,  but  it  surely  had  been, 
years  ago ;  it  was  now  a  noble,  intellectual,  be- 
nevolent face ;  that,  unquestionably,  of  a  man 
above  and  apart  from  his  fellow-men. 

There  were  gray-heads  in  the  crowd  who  re- 
membered this  man  when,  just  about  twenty 
years  before,  he  had  been  driven  an  exile  from 
France,  to  which  he  now  for  the  first  time  re- 
turned ;  and  they  called  to  mind  how,  when  he 
went,  his  hair  had  been  almost  raven-black,  and 
his  face  had  beamed  with  all  the  glories  of  the 
intellectual  beauty  of  younger  manhoad.  He 
had  greatly  changed ;  but  age  had  ennobled 
him,  and  made  him  look  far  grander  than  before. 

Strange  words  —  strangely  eloquent  and  pow- 
erful, and  altogether  surprising  —  were  those 
which,  when  his  clear,  warm  voice  could  be 
heard,  greeted  the  ears  of  his  hearers.  He 
plunged  into  a  harangue  in  which  pathos,  imagi- 


VICTOR  HUGO.  157 

nation,  poetry,  and  extravagance  of  language, 
were  grotesquely  blended.  He  spoke  of  France 
as  the  focus  of  civilization,  and  of  Paris  as  the  in- 
tellectual metropolis  of  the  globe.  In  splendid 
diction,  with  sentences  bejewelled  with  epigram 
and  studded  with  simile,  he  sounded  all  the 
glories  of  his  native  land.  He  told  his  auditors 
that  the  Germans  would  never  dare  to  lay  their 
vandal  hands  upon  sacred  Paris ;  that  as  she  sat 
there,  peerless  amid  her  hills,  her  very  aspect 
would  awe  the  intruder  into  hasty  retreat.  Then, 
stretching  forth  his  arms  in  the  drizzling  rain  in 
the  direction  whence  the  German  armies  were 
approaching  the  capital,  he  addressed  to  them 
an  appeal,  which  at  one  moment  we  are  prone  to 
think  of  as  sublime,  and  in  the  next  as  ludicrous. 
He  besought  the  German  hosts  to  dethrone  their 
kings,  to  desert  their  generals,  to  lay  down  their 
arms,  to  hasten  to  the  embrace  of  their  French 
brethren,  and,  with  them,  to  declare  "  the  uni- 
versal republic  !  " 

The  life  of  this  greatest  of  all  French  roman- 
cers —  for  what  French  novel-writer,  living  or 
dead,  could  match  any  one  of  his  own  works  with 
"  Les  Miserables  "?  —  has  been  itself  a  romance. 
One  shrinks    from   attempting    to    portray   that 


158  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

meteor-like  career,  —  the  splendor  of  its  tri- 
umphs, the  depth  of  its  sorrows,  its  unexpected 
denouements,  its  displays  of  passion,  of  fancy,  of 
profound  thought,  of  a  charity  and  humane 
yearnings  that  have  embraced  all  mankind,  its 
creations  of  literary  schools,  and  its  defiances  of 
autocratic  power;  and  still  less  hopeful  is  the 
task  of  justly  weighing  and  describing  the  quality 
and  characteristics  of  this  genius,  which  has 
moved  and  startled  men  for  more  than  fifty  years, 
and  the  resources  of  which  are  apparently  far 
from  being  even  yet  exhausted. 

This  ardent  republican  is  the  son  of  a  Bona- 
partist  general  and  of  a  Legitimist  mother,  and 
the  grandson  of  an  old  noble  who  was  guillotined 
by  Robespierre.  Born  when  the  power  of  Na- 
poleon was  at  its  height,  he  was  reared  amid  the 
thrilling  and  troublous  events  which  marked 
Napoleon's  decline  and  fall.  He  is,  moreover, 
of  noble  blood ;  for  General  Hugo,  his  father, 
dated  his  nobility  two  centuries  back,  and  his 
mother  was  patrician  enough  to  have  joined  in 
the  royalist  conspiracy  of  La  Vendee.  Victor 
Hugo's  childhood  was  passed  amid  scenes  well 
fitted  to  nurture  the  soul  of  a  poet.  That  pov- 
erty which  he  has  portrayed  so  often  and  with 


VICTOR  HUGO.  159 

such  tender  eloquence,  he  himself  never  sufifered. 
His  beauty  and  brightness  as  a  child  were  the 
theme  of  all  who  saw  him.  Before  he  had 
reached  his  eighth  year  he  had  seen  more  of  the 
great  world  than  most  men  during  their  lives. 
His  first  recollections  brought  before  his  mind's 
eye  the  new-fangled  and  showy  court  of  the 
great  Napoleon.  At  five,  he  found  himself  amid 
the  Calabrian  mountains,  where  his  father  was 
busy  trapping  the  famous  brigand,  Fra  Diavolo. 
He  travelled  in  Italy,  studied  in  a  convent,  learned 
to  read  the  Latin  historians  precociously  soon; 
again  lived  in  Spain,  and  took  in  all  that  he  saw 
and  learned  with  keen  eye  and  rapid  mind.  These 
early  associations  made  a  gentleman,  and  a 
scholar,  and  a  poet  of  Victor  Hugo ;  and  he  has 
carried  the  polish  of  intellectual  refinement  and 
the  grace  of  the  old-time  manner  then  learned, 
through  revolution,  riot,  the  storms  of  the  trib- 
une, and  his  apostolate  of  the  rights  of  the 
people. 

Victor  Hugo  published  poetry  worth  reading 
and  remembering  at  ten  years  of  age.  Four 
years  later  he  produced  a  tragedy ;  at  fifteen 
he  wrote  an  essay  for  the  prize  of  the  Academy, 
which  was  only  withheld  from  him  because  the 


l6o  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

Academicians  could  not  believe  that  such  a  strip- 
ling composed  it.  Then  began  that  marvellous 
literary  career  which  has  continued  to  amaze 
mankind  for  more  than  half  a  century.  A  mere 
record  of  Victor  Hugo's  literary  triumphs  would 
go  far  to  exhaust  the  space  at  my  disposal.  He 
was  a  distinguished  man  at  twenty,  the  favorite 
poet  of  the  Bourbon  Restoration,  the  master  of 
the  revels  at  the  games  of  Toulouse,  christened 
by  Chateaubriand  "  the  sublime  child,"  granted 
a  pension  by  the  king,  and  admired  throughout 
Paris  for  his  noble  grace  and  bearing  and  his 
brilliant  personal  beauty.  It  then  seemed  as  if 
Victor  Hugo  was  destined  to  become  another 
Racine ;  an  elegant  ornament  of  courts,  a  starred 
noble,  perhaps  a  staid  politician,  and  a  prospec- 
tive, polite  and  loyal  minister  of  fine  arts.  His 
imagination,  now  crystallizing  into  beautiful  and 
vigorous  forms,  decorated  the  Bourbon  throne 
with  floral  crowns  and  wreaths  of  poesy  such  as 
had  never  before  adorned  it.  He  endowed  the 
dull  and  narrow-souled  Charles  X.  with  knightly 
qualities  and  heroism  such  as  his  genius  alone 
could  have  lifted  and  protected  from  the  laugh- 
ter of  the  world.  Royal  mouths  spoke  of  him  as 
Orpheus  and  Apollo  in  one.     But  at  that  time 


VICTOR  HUGO.  l6l 

no  one  suspected  in  the  young  bard,  who  had 
already  drunk  in  the  full  meaning  of  Lamartine's 
"  Meditations,"  other  thoughts  or  aspirations  than 
those  inspired  by  a  blind  idolatry  of  thrones. 

To  a  mind  at  once  so  clear,  so  susceptible, 
and  so  sensitive  as  that  of  Victor  Hugo,  the 
awakening  to  the  consciousness  that  the  idols  of 
his  childhood  and  youth  were  coarse  and  com- 
mon clay,  must  have  been  a  terrible  one.  His 
happiness  and  his  ambition  rested  in  his  thoughts  ; 
and  to  find  that  he  had  wasted  the  rich  gold  of 
his  fancy  upon  that  which  was  unworthy,  seems 
to  have  gradually  transformed  him.  Victor  Hugo 
for  the  first  time  became  a  politician  when  his 
fair  dreams  of  royal  honor  and  beneficence  were 
rudely  dispelled,  and  his  eyes  were  opened  to  a 
suff'ering  people  struggling  beneath  the  throne. 
The  young  poet  then  betrayed  the  nobility  of 
his  nature;  its  courage,  its  sincerity,  and  its 
deep-feeling  humanity.  He  boldly  cast  his  false 
gods  behind  him.  He  approached  the  political 
descendants  of  those  who  had  guillotined  his 
grandsire  ;  of  those  whom  his  revered  mother,  at 
the  risk  of  her  very  life,  had  conspired  to  over- 
throw. The  glamour  of  the  Napoleonic  legend 
faded  and  shrivelled  before  his  eyes ;   the  divinity 


1 62  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

that  had  seemed  to  him  to  hedge  kings,  deserted 
the  throne,  and  hovered  now  above  the  people. 
The  new  thoughts  did  not  come  upon  him  all  at 
once ;  he  was  not  converted,  like  Paul,  in  a  blind- 
ing flash  of  light.  His  muse  at  first  became  dumb. 
There  were  no  more  magnificent  pagans  sung  to 
the  surpassing  excellence  of  Bourbon  royalty. 
The  crowding  thoughts  were  stemmed  and  pent 
up.  This  teeming,  unresting  mind  was  for  a  time 
congested  with  unuttered  thoughts  and  imagin- 
ings. It  must  be  confessed,  too,  that  praise  was 
sweet  to  him,  and  that  his  silence  was  freezing 
the  praise  that  lingered  on  high-born  lips,  ready 
to  lavish  itself  when  he  should  sing  again. 

Then  he  cut  adrift  from  the  past.  The  word 
went  forth  that  the  pet  poet  of  the  Restoration 
was  no  longer  its  flatterer  and  laureate.  He 
turned  from  the  composition  of  sycophantic  odes 
to  that  of  virile  and  fiery  romances.  He  founded 
a  liberal  club.  He  began  to  talk  fervidly  of  the 
rights  of  the  people.  He  established  and  edited 
a  paper  devoted  to  literary  and  political  reform ; 
and  now  that  he  was  fairly  abroad  on  the  new 
road,  he  gave  bold  battle  to  other  things  that 
were  ancient  besides  the  monarchy.  The  false 
gods    of    the    throne    were    not    the    only   ones 


VICTOR  HUGO.  163 

against  whom  he  hurled  the  whole  force  of  his 
eloquence  and  genius.  He  became  the  apostle 
of  a  new  literature.  He  braved  the  big-wigs  of 
the  Academy  itself;  revolted  from  classic  per- 
fection of  form,  and  championed  the  cause  of 
pure  and  great  ideas ;  he  sought  to  pull  down 
Aristotle  from  his  pedestal,  and  Racine  from  his ; 
he  praised  Voltaire ;  he  locked  arms  with  La- 
martine ;  and  in  his  tragedy  of  "  Cromwell," 
given  to  the  world  when  he  was  twenty-five,  laid 
the  corner-stone  of  that  romanticism  which  has 
become  the  Parthenon  of  French  literature.  No 
one  can,  probably,  conceive  of  the  intensity  of 
the  conflict  which  then  raged  between  the  old 
and  new  literary  schools,  who  did  not  live  in  its 
midst;  its  issue  we  know,  for  the  triumph  of 
Hugo  and  Lamartine,  if  slow,  has  been  complete. 
It  would  seem  as  if  this  struggle,  and  with  it 
the  full  awakening  to  a  new  intellectual  life, 
served  to  develop  powers  in  Victor  Hugo's  mind 
which,  with  all  his  reputation  and  promise,  had 
hitherto  been  unsuspected.  For  it  was  in  the 
very  last  years  of  the  reign  of  Charles  X.,  that 
he  produced  the  dramas  which  at  once  placed 
him  above  every  dramatist  of  his  time,  and  which 
contained  the  revolutionary  ideas  which  he  has 


164  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

since  only  elaborated.  "Marion  de  I'Orme " 
aroused  the  terror  of  the  palace,  of  the  Academy, 
of  the  patrician  classes,  of  the  dramatic  censor- 
ship. Had  it  been  only  revolutionary  and  com- 
inonplace,  it  might  have  been  ignored  with 
contempt;  but  it  was  literary  genius  flourishing 
the  sword  of  revolution.  Its  fiery  utterances  went 
straight  to  the  heart  and  the  reason  of  the  people. 
It  was  more  powerful  than  Manuel  in  the  Cham- 
ber, Royer-Collard  at  the  Sorbonne,  or  Thiers  in 
the  sanctum.  It  appealed  to  the  popular  heart 
in  its  recreations.  Its  performance  was  for- 
bidden. Then  came  "  Hernani,"  w^hich  was 
allowed.  This  leniency  was  as  fatal  as  the  former 
intolerance  had  been.  "  Hernani  "  inspired  a  riot 
on  the  very  eve  of  Charles's  downfall;  Victor 
Ilugo  was  vindicated  by  the  fists  of  the  mob.  In 
his  hands  the  theatre  became  an  engine  of  revo- 
lution quite  as  effective  as  the  eloquence  of  the 
tribune  or  the  power  of  the  press ;  and  in  the 
alliance  which  effected  the  final  expulsion  of 
the  Bourbons,  we  must  reckon  the  drama,  as 
used  by  him,  as  not  the  least  formidable  con- 
federate. 

His  dramas  and  poems  had  made  him  a  polit- 
ical as  well  as  a  literary  figure.    So  far,  however, 


VICTOR  HUGO.  165 

was  he  from  the  ultimate  goal  of  republican 
faith,  when  the  revolution  of  1830  took  place, 
that  he  seems  for  the  moment  to  have  regretted 
the  Bourbon  downfall.  It  was  at  this  period  that 
he  produced  the  first  of  his  great  works  of  endur- 
ing fiction,  —  "  Notre  Dame  de  Paris ;  "  and  it  is 
scarcely  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  up  to  that 
time,  no  romance  written  by  a  French  pen  had 
so  stirred  the  feeling  of  the  masses.  Almost  for 
the  first  time,  we  find  in  "  Notre  Dame "  that 
profound  and  tender  sympathy  for,  and  commis- 
eration with,  the  unfortunate,  which  was  in  the 
process  of  years  to  make  Victor  Hugo,  above  all 
writers,  the  champion  of  poverty  and  humble 
virtue.  Nor  could  the  reader  of  "  Notre  Dame  " 
fail  to  discover,  in  many  of  its  brilliant  passages, 
the  germ  of  that  belief  in  the  brotherhood  and 
the  equality  of  men,  which  became  the  central 
idea  of  Victor  Hugo's  political  creed.  Scorn 
of  kingship,  contempt  of  hereditary  privilege, 
fiery  indignation  at  the  oppressions  of  the  great, 
burst  forth  in  its  pages,  here  and  there,  seem- 
ingly almost  against  the  writer's  will. 

But  two  years  had  not  elapsed  of  the  reign  of 
the  citizen  king,  before  Victor  Hugo  again 
assailed  palace  and  crown  through  the  avenue  of 


1 66  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

the  drama.  Rejected  though  this  no  longer 
questioned  genius  had  been  by  the  Academy, 
regarded  still  in  polite  society  as  a  brilliant  but 
erratic  visionary,  not  yet  accepted  by  the 
tribunes  of  the  people  as  one  of  themselves,  as 
yet  more  conservative  in  politics  than  Thiers  or 
Lamartine,  more  radical  in  literature  than  Royer- 
Collard  or  Beranger,  Victor  Hugo  had  never- 
theless made  his  power  felt  over  the  hearts  and 
imaginations  of  the  masses.  "Le  Roi  s'Amuse  " 
—  a  thunderbolt  of  satire  and  ridicule  aimed  at 
the  uselessness  and  caprices  of  kingship  — 
raised  such  an  uproar  even  in  a  "  bourgeois " 
reign,  as  to  terrify  Louis  Philippe  and  his  min- 
isters, and  to  cause  it  to  be  suppressed  by  official 
decree.  This  seemed  a  violation  of  that  popular 
liberty  which  the  revolution  had  been  supposed 
to  secure ;  but  it  was  also  so  much  the  more  an 
unwilling  tribute  to  Victor  Hugo's  genius.  He 
now  became  a  popular  idol ;  and  if,  at  that 
moment,  he  had  chosen  to  leave  the  field  of 
literature  for  that  of  politics,  he  might  have  taken 
his  place  among  the  chiefs  of  the  popular  party. 
At  the  age  of  thirty,  however,  with  the  con- 
sciousness of  his  past  triumphs  and  his  ripening 
genius   to   inspire    him,   literature  was  still    too 


VICTOR  HUGO.  167 

beloved  a  mistress  to  quit.  The  decade  between 
1832  and  1842  was  the  most  fruitful  in  his  whole 
life  in  amount  and  quality  of  literary  production. 
He  did  not  in  that  period  reach  the  very  summit 
of  intellectual  achievement;  that  was  to  be  at- 
tained when,  twenty  years  later,  the  incomparable 
"  Les  Miserables "  was  read  by  a  wondering 
world.  But  it  was  between  1832  and  1842  that 
appeared  "  Lucretia  Borgia,"  "  Marie  Stuart," 
and  "  Ruy  Bias,"  three  magnificent  historical 
dramas  which  still  hold  the  stage,  and  have  won 
triumphs  in  every  civilized  country ;  that  his 
masterly  "  Study  of  Mirabeau,"  his  "  Literature 
and  Philosophy,"  "  Songs  of  Twilight,"  the  bold 
martial  poem  of  "  The  Rhine,"  "  Inner  Voices," 
and  "  Angels,"  were  written  and  published.  It 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  at  the  end  of  this 
period,  Victor  Hugo  had  attained  a  degree  of  lit- 
erary renown  far  eclipsing  that  of  Chateaubriand, 
Lamartine,  or  Balzac,  and  only  surpassed  in  the 
previous  century  by  Voltaire. 

It  has  been  said  of  the  contrast  between  the 
greatest  Greek  and  the  greatest  mediaeval  Italian 
sculptor,  that  while  Phidias  executed  serene 
gods,  Michael  Angelo  portrayed  suffering  he- 
roes.    As    one    compares   the  works    of  Victor 


1 68  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

Hugo  —  those  already  mentioned  ^  with  the 
performances  of  the  preceding  French  classics, 
a  similar  contrast  suggests  itself.  The  revolt 
which  Victor  Hugo  began  at  twenty  against  the 
formality,  the  correctness,  the  rule  and  measure- 
governed  style  of  Racine,  Corneille,  and  their 
schools,  he  carried  on  persistently  and  hotly 
throughout  his  literary  career.  In  twenty  years 
he  had  so  far  established  romanticism  as  the 
vital  principle  of  a  virile  and  enduring  literature, 
that  scholarly  France  was  very  evenly  divided 
between  it  and  the  older  school;  and  in  1841 
romanticism  achieved  a  victory  and  unequivocal 
testimony  to  its  influence,  by  the  admission  of 
Victor  Hugo,  at  last,  into  the  august  circle  of  the 
French  Academy.  Four  years  later  a  very  dif- 
ferent and  much  more  singular  honor  was  con- 
ferred upon  him.  Louis  Philippe  created  him 
a  senator  of  France;  but  Victor  Hugo,  though 
he  was  well  fitted  to  play  a  conspicuous  part  as 
an  academician,  was  quite  out  of  place  among 
the  formal  and  prosy  pundits  who  then  com- 
posed the  upper  house ;  and  his  appearances  as 
a  "  senator  "  were  few  and  rare.  No  one  as  yet 
suspected  that  Victor  Hugo  was  capable  of  high 
political  eloquence ;  but  this  was  soon  to  be 
proven  beyond  all  cavil. 


VICTOR  HUGO.  169 

The  revolution  of  1848  came  to  stir  every 
Frenchman  with  patriotic  instincts  to  the  most 
anxious  thought  and  earnest  endeavor  in  behalf 
of  his  country.  Victor  Hugo  seems  to  have 
hesitated  now  for  the  last  time  between  the  in- 
fluences of  his  childhood  and  the  convictions  of 
his  ripened  intellect.  At  first  he  thought  of  re- 
sisting the  revolution.  When  it  had  become  an 
accomplished  fact,  he  entered  the  Constituent 
Assembly  to  cast  the  weight  of  his  fame  and  in- 
fluence in  the  moderate  scale.  He  feared  the 
return  of  the  Terror,  and  shrank  from  the  pros- 
pect of  Jacobin  rule.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  in 
those  days  he  sat  near  Louis  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte in  the  Chamber,  and  more/)ften  voted  with 
him  than  on  the  other  side.  He  was  democratic 
and  republican,  but  looked  askance  at  the  Moun- 
tain. Events  soon  rapidly  changed  his  view  of 
the  political  course  he  should  pursue.  He  was 
alarmed  at  the  election  of  Bonaparte  to  the 
presidency,  and  already  foresaw  the  shadow  of 
the  Empire  lowering  over  France.  In  the  Leg- 
islative Assembly,  which  succeeded  the  Constit- 
uent, and  in  which  Victor  Hugo  sat  as  one  of 
the  representatives  of  Paris,  he  finally  took  his 
stand    as    a    champion    of  popular    liberty    and 


I/O  CERTAIN  MEX  OF  MARK. 

equality,  and  from  that  hour  to  this  he  has  never 
once  swerved  from  that  creed. 

And  now,  at  the  age  of  forty-eight,  Victor 
Hugo  proved  himself  a  brilliant  orator.  It  was 
impossible  for  him  to  espouse  such  a  cause  as 
this,  which  fired  his  imagination  and  satisfied  his 
intellect,  without  plunging  into  it  with  all  the 
glowing  and  intense  fervor  of  his  nature.  He 
was  never  a  judge,  but  always  a  vehement  parti- 
san. Of  a  physical  type  and  presence  which 
filled  and  attracted  the  eye,  with  raven-black 
hair,  a  "  great,  curious  eye,"  an  erect,  defiant 
form,  a  manner  absorbingly  intent  and  earnest, 
a  clear,  high  voice,  with  every  tone  and  every 
movement  full  of  passion ;  and,  added  to  these 
traits,  wit^"-  pre-eminent  renown  as  a  poet  and 
dramatist;  it  is  no  wonder  that  Victor  Hugo 
commanded  spell-bound  attention.  His  deliv- 
ery was  tempestuous,  rapid,  flashing,  and,  it 
must  be  said,  often  arrogant ;  he  hesitated  at  no 
violence  or  extravagance  of  language;  he  did 
not  spare  even  the  most  illustrious  of  his  antago- 
nists ;  he  exhausted  the  resources  of  a  vocabu- 
lary overflowing  with  epithets  upon  those  whom 
he  assailed ;  with  scorn  and  withering  contempt, 
with  denunciations  white-hot  and  scorching,  with 


VICTOR  HUGO.  171 

ridicule  that  hissed  and  seethed,  as,  Hke  molten 
lava,  he  poured  it  out  upon  the  objects  of  his 
hostility,  he  battled  for  the  cause  he  had  wedded 
and  was  intent  on  bringing  to  realization.  Those 
who  heard  his  almost  daily  forensic  conflicts 
with  Montalembert,  a  foeman  worthy  of  his 
steel,  and  one  who  had  the  advantage  of  him  at 
least  in  temper  and  logic,  speak  of  those  scenes 
as  scenes  never  to  be  forgotten ;  and  those  who 
sat  well-nigh  paralyzed,  as  he  hurled  his  anathe- 
mas upon  the  faithless  President  of  the  repub- 
lic, who  was  subjecting  that  republic  to  a  slow 
process  of  assassination,  declare  that  they  can 
still  hear  the  strident  voice  and  the  relentless 
words  ringing  in  their  ears.  Enough  has  been 
said  of  the  character  of  Victor  Hugo's  political 
temperament  and  eloquence  to  show  why  he 
could  never  be  a  statesman  or  a  practical  politi- 
cian. It  provokes  a  smile  to  think  of  this  vehe- 
ment and  extravagant  genius  framing  a  formal 
code,  or  leading,  by  patience  and  tact,  a  party 
to  victory.  He  was,  evidently,  an  apostle  and 
preacher  of  republicanism,  and  not  a  law-maker. 
He  dealt  with  abstract  ideas ;  sublime  ones,  in- 
deed, but  ideas  which  could  scarcely  be  so  codi- 
fied as  to  govern  well  the  Frenchmen  of  1850. 


1/2  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK'. 

He  could  see  whither  poor  worried  France  was 
drifting,  and  the  traitor  hand  preparing  the 
death-blow  for  the  republic ;  declamation  could 
not  hold  France  back,  or  the  traitor  hand ;  yet, 
unfortunately,  declamation  was  all  that  this 
proud  patriot  knew  how  to  do.  The  greatest 
and  noblest  of  the  romanticists  was  in  politics 
a  visionary ;  and  his  eloquence,  glowing,  ardent, 
fierce,  tremendous  in  bitterness,  scorn  and  ridi- 
cule as  it  was,  could  avail  nothing,  unless  it  were 
to  rouse  more  practical  minds  from  their  torpor, 
and  to  inflame  the  popular  mind  to  revolt  against 
oppression.  The  ample  proof  that  Victor  Hugo, 
brilliant  as  an  orator,  vehement  as  a  partisan, 
and  absorbingly  zealous  as  a  patriot,  was  really 
out  of  place  as  a  politician,  lies  in  his  utter  help- 
lessness at  the  supreme  moment  when  the 
catastrophe  which  he  had  long  foreseen  —  the 
coup  d'etat  —  occurred.  That  his  eloquence  had 
power  and  danger  in  it,  however,  was  abundantly 
confessed  by  the  usurper;  one  of  whose  first 
acts  was  to  banish  the  brightest  literary  light  of 
France  from  her  soil.  Then  came  the  long  exile 
in  Jersey,  Guernsey,  and  Brussels;  the  scornful 
rejection  of  amnesties  ofi'ered  and  even  urged; 
the    terrific    onslaught    upon    the    Emperor    in 


VICTOR  HUGO.  173 

"  Napoleon  the  Little ;  "  and  there  turn  of  Vic- 
tor Hugo,  fortunately  for  the  world  and  for  his 
fame,  to  literary  labors.  It  was  during  his  exile 
of  nineteen  years  that  he  wrote  "  Les  Chati- 
ments,"  a  poem  of  which,  as  has  been  well  said, 
"  every  line  breathes  living  fire,  and  branded  his 
enemy  with  indelible  disgrace ;  "  that  he  pro- 
duced those  profound  and  unsurpassingly  pa- 
thetic reflections,  "Les  Contemplations;"  that 
he  wrought  out  that  masterpiece  of  his  genius, 
"  Les  Miserables ;  "  and  that  he  betrayed  many 
other  evidences  of  his  versatility  as  well  as  of  his 
feeling  and  fancy. 

It  behooves  the  student  of  Victor  Hugo's 
works,  no  matter  how  appreciative  and  loving, 
to  speak  cautiously  and  with  measured  words 
of  his  splendid  genius ;  for  there  is  that  in  his 
noblest  work  which  so  dazzles  and  enthralls  that 
the  reader  is  most  easily  thrown  off  the  balance 
of  his  judgment.  One  is  tempted  to  declare 
that  the  entire  philosophy  and  practical  teaching 
of  the  Christian  religion  lie  between  the  covers  of 
"  Les  Miserables  ;  "  that  not  even  in  Shakespeare 
is  there  such  deep  penetration  into  human  char- 
acter; that  in  the  chapter  on  "the  Dissection 
of  a  Soul,"   the  profoundest  depth  of  spiritual 


174  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

probing  has  been  reached ;  that  the  pathos  and 
the  passion,  the  minute  shades  of  character,  the 
marvellous  humanity,  the  all-embracing  sym- 
pathy, the  dramatic  power,  the  superb  descrip- 
tion, to  be  found  in  that  romance,  have  never 
before  been  combined  within  a  single  book. 
Even  the  staid  Blackwood  reviewer  is  lured  from 
judicial  measure  of  language  when  he  comes  to 
speak  of  "  Les  Miserables  "  and  "  Notre  Dame." 
He  says  that  "  they  dwarf  everything  that  can 
be  put  by  their  side ;  "  that  there  is  nothing  in 
modern  literature  "  which  would  not  look  pale 
in  their  presence ;  "  and  that  "  there  is  no 
Frenchman  who  can  be  so  much  as  thought  of 
in  any  possible  aspect  of  rivalry "  with  Victor 
Hugo,  Once  the  laureate  of  thrones,  in  the  pas- 
sage of  years  and  the  process  of  intellectual 
growth  he  became  of  all  men  the  literary  tribune 
of  poverty  and  misfortune.  Every  subject  that 
he  handles,  too,  completely  possesses  him. 
Even  in  his  most  extravagant  passages  —  and 
there  are  many  which  to  most  readers  seem  to 
be  enthusiasm  gone  clean  mad  —  there  is  appar- 
ently no  studying  for  mere  effect.  Of  all  things, 
Victor  Hugo  is  inartificial.  It  is  not  the  mere 
art   of  a  skilled  writer    that    is    observed ;    this 


VICTOR  HUGO.  175 

quality  is  there,  it  is  true,  for  without  it  the 
splendid  dramatic  effects,  the  surprises,  situa- 
tions, and  denouements,  the  rapid  and  brilliant 
transitions  from  scorn  to  pathos,  from  pathos  to 
sunny  merriment,  and  from  joy  to  the  most  som- 
bre tragedy,  could  not  have  been  wrought  out  to 
such  artistic  perfection.  There  is,  however, 
within  and  behind,  the  real  and  sacred  fire  of 
genius ;  a  harmonious  union  of  imagination  and 
enthusiasm  and  dead-in-earnestness.  As  one 
recalls  one  after  another  of  Victor  Hugo's  pro- 
ductions, he  is  tempted  to  think  that  love  is  the 
key-note  of  his  soul.  He  loves  France  with  a 
fervor  more  than  patriotic ;  he  almost  worships 
the  grandeur  of  Paris ;  he  fondly  loves  nature, 
and  all  things  beautiful  within  it;  his  mighty 
heart  reaches  forth  and  embraces  mankind ; 
above  all,  his  tenderest  affection  is  lavished,  in 
glowing  words  that  fire  with  like  feeling  every 
other  heart  that  is  not  dead,  with  the  choicest 
flowers  of  his  fancy,  the  brightest  gems  of  his 
intellectual  wealth,  and  the  most  far-sought 
phrases  of  affection  his  language  affords,  upon 
the  down-trodden  and  the  stricken,  the  victims 
of  man's  injustice,  the  desperate  hunted  ones  of 
society. 


176  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

And  this  quality  of  great  love  that  appears  in 
his  writings,  is  also  the  noblest  personal  quality 
of  the  man  himself.  Between  him  and  the  mem- 
bers of  his  family  there  has  always  been  the 
most  ardent  and  devoted  affection.  There  is 
not  an  author  living  sharper  at  a  trade  with  the 
publishers ;  he  exacts  his  due  to  the  uttermost 
centime.  And  his  due  received,  it  is  lavished 
with  bounteous  hand  right  and  left,  to  relieve 
suffering,  to  scatter  joy,  to  comfort  the  lowly,  to 
confer  pleasure.  All  exiles  were  welcomed  to 
his  exiled  home  at  Guernsey  with  open  arms  and 
to  a  bounteous  table.  The  unfortunate  of  all 
lands  were  his  guests  and  his  pensioners.  After 
the  fall  of  the  Commune,  when  Victor  Hugo  had 
retired  to  Brussels,  he  filled  his  house  there  with 
Communist  refugees ;  and  this  at  the  risk  not 
only  of  his  property,  but  his  life.  His  enthu- 
siastic affection  for  children  is  betrayed  alike  in 
his  works  and  in  his  daily  acts.  There  are  no 
more  exquisitely  beautiful  passages  in  his  ro- 
mances than  those  in  which  he  describes  child- 
hood. There  is  a  caress  in  every  tone,  and  a 
benediction  in  every  touch.  "  The  babes,"  says 
the  reviewer  already  quoted,  "are  as  distinct  as 
the  heroes,  every  pearly  curve  of  them   tender 


VICTOR  HUGO.  177 

and  sweet  as  rose-leaves,  yet  complete  creatures, 
even  in  the  most  delicious  softness  of  execution." 
With  what  loving  tenderness  does  he  follow  the 
growth  from  childhood  to  loveliest  girlhood,  and 
noble  v/omanhood,  of  Cosette  !  How  you  can 
see  his  heart  wrapt  up  in  this  gentle  creature, 
and  almost  feel  it  bound  with  pleasure  when  he 
returns,  from  lurid  scenes  and  dreary  wicked- 
ness, to  attend  her  in  another  step  of  her  career  ! 
The  wrongs  done  to  children  make  his  heart 
bleed,  and  force  from  him  groans  of  anguish  and 
agony.  "  The  Man  v/ho  Laughs  "  is  judged  by 
the  world  his  least  attractive  and  least  creditable 
work  of  fiction  ;  and  truly  its  wild  extravagance, 
its  historical  inaccuracies,  its  imagination  gone 
to  seed,  its  endless  detail,  its  riot  of  words  and 
ideas,  render  it  a  not  pleasant  book,  even  to  his 
most  zealous  admirers.  But  in  "  The  Man  who 
Laughs  "  is  the  most  terrible  indictment  against 
the  cruelty  of  the  great  and  rich  that  ever  was 
drawn ;  and  to  intensify  the  enormity  of  the 
selfish  barbarism  of  the  class  at  which  he  aimed, 
he  reproduced  a  most  awful  example  in  the  per- 
son of  a  bright  and  tender-hearted  cliild,  made 
hideous  for  life  for  courts  and  crowds  to  jeer  at. 
To   the  cursory  reader,  Gwynplaine,  "  the  man 


178  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

who  laughs,"  is  a  hideously  romantic  hero.  To 
those  of  deeper  insight,  he  is  the  terrible  symbol 
of  the  people,  whose  souls  have  been  mutilated 
by  kings  and  laws,  so  that  they  laugh  forever  at 
their  own  appalling  debasement. 

It  is  pleasant  to  think  that  the  green  old  age 
of  this  master-spirit  of  literature,  this  man  who 
is  renowned  alike  as  a  poet,  a  novelist,  a  drama- 
tist, a  philosopher,  an  editor,  and  an  orator,  who 
has  worked  so  splendidly  in  the  cause  of  the 
lowly,  who  has  given  forth  ideas  that  will  surely 
live,  who  has  uttered  truths  which  must  make 
men  better  as  they  spread,  and  who  has  shown 
in  his  own  noble,  unselfish,  fruitful  life,  what 
good  things  are  temperance,  benevolence,  and 
self-sacrifice,  —  it  is  pleasant  to  think  that  his 
green  old  age  is  being  passed  in  the  Paris  he  so 
dearly  loves,  and  amid  the  scenes  of  all  his  tri- 
umphs; that  he  may  contemplate,  with  serene 
delight,  the  founding  of  a  French  repubHc  likely 
to  endure,  and  may  himself  sit  as  a  life  senator 
of  France  among  its  grave  councillors.  Victor 
Hugo  has  never  affected  the  roughness  of  life 
and  dress,  and  vulgar  familiarity  of  manner,  by 
which  the  demagogue  sometimes  seeks  to  gain 
favor  with  the  multitude.     He  has  always  lived 


VICTOR  HUGO.  179 

like  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar.  His  house  has 
always  been  the  centre  of  elegant  literary  re- 
unions; his  chosen  companions  have  been  men 
of  culture  and  intellect.  His  modest  though 
cosily  garnished  house  in  the  Rue  Clichy  has  be- 
come, since  the  return  of  the  great  exile,  the 
centre  of  frequent  political  and  literary  recep- 
tions, at  which  the  first  minds  in  France  have 
gathered  to  discuss  measures  and  books.  Thrice 
in  three  years  the  shadow  of  death  fell  upon 
his  house,  depriving  him  of  a  faithful  and  be- 
loved wife,  and  two  sons  on  whose  future  he  had 
rested  the  most  sanguine  hopes.  These  great 
griefs  passed,  and  left  the  grand  old  man  sadly 
serene ;  for  he  believes  in  a  future  life  with  all 
his  soul,  and  knows  that  ere  long  his  own  sum- 
mons must  come  to  rejoin  them.  No  one  can 
approach  him  without  being  irresistibly  attracted 
by  his  beneficent  face,  his  big,  kindly  glowing 
eyes,  his  cordial,  almost  afiectionate  warmth  of 
greeting.  To  every  one  alike  he  is  approach- 
able, genial  and  talkative.  As  his  sympathies 
reach  down  to  the  humblest,  so  his  bearing  with 
all  men  is  outwardly  fraternal.  What  he  is  in 
his  books,  he  is  in  his  daily  walks ;  and  one  has 
only  to  read  them,  to  derive  an  excellent  idea  of 


l80  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

his  conversation.  It  is  sparkling,  epigrammatic, 
flowing,  full  of  warmth  and  feeling,  accompanied 
by  expressive  action  of  the  features  and  the 
hands.  He  is  ready  and  glad  to  talk  about 
everything,  and  amazes  by  the  extent  of  his  eru- 
dition, especially  in  common  things.  He  is 
easily  aroused  to  a  long  and  brilliant  monologue 
by  the  introduction  of  a  subject  that  especially 
interests  him.  He  never  tires  of  declaiming  — 
for  it  is  declamation  —  about  the  hopeful  outlook 
for  the  republic ;  about  the  enormity  of  the 
coup  d'etat ;  about  the  necessity  of  abolishing, 
by  the  spread  of  knowledge,  all  crime,  war,  and 
poverty.  His  ideas  naturally  take  poetic  and 
grandiose  forms  as  he  warms  to  his  theme.  He 
quotes  freely  from  his  own  works,  with  graceful 
apology;  and  there  is  throughout  an  air  of  what 
would  be  called  vanity  in  a  lesser  man,  but  which 
in  him  is  warranted  by  the  consciousness  of  his 
pre-eminent  fame,  and  of  the  reverent  admiration 
of  all  the  world. 

In  certain  respects  Victor  Hugo  has  been 
compared  to  Thomas  Carlyle ;  and  it  is  hard  to 
think  of  any  other  British  writer  with  whom  such 
a  comparison  could  be  possible.  Carlyle  and 
Hugo,  however,  have  the  same  panoramic  pic- 


VICTOR  HUGO.  l8l 

turesqueness  of  delineation,  the  same  poetic  in- 
sight into  events  and  character,  the  same  com- 
plete and  powerful  method  of  portraiture,  the 
same  scorn  of  sham,  pretence  and  privilege,  and 
the  same  feverish  aspirations  for  a  better  world. 
But  Victor  Hugo,  as  he  has  grown  old,  has 
grown  too  in  his  faith  in  men ;  his  sympathies 
for  the  oppressed  and  outcast,  his  tenderness  for 
the  individual,  have  broadened  and  deepened. 
But  age  has  made  of  Carlyle  a  scoffing  cynic, 
a  disbeliever  in  human  excellence  lying  beneath 
ignorance  and  poverty,  and  a  fierce  advocate  of 
hero-worship  and  what  he  calls  beneficent  des- 
potism. His  beliefs  —  what  few  are  left  to  him  — 
wander  in  a  maze  of  bewilderment,  and  refuse  to 
be  defined.  Victor  Hugo  may  hot  be  a  Catholic ; 
he  may  ridicule  the  stories  the  priests  tell  the 
people  as  "  old  wives'  fables ;  "  he  may  thunder 
against  the  spiritual  tyranny  of  prelates  and  the 
exactions  of  the  clergy ;  but  he  who  wrote  "  Les 
Miserables  "  can  scarcely  be  otherwise  than  a 
devoutly-believing  Christian.  And  in  this  Victor 
Hugo  rises  a  long  degree  higher  than  almost 
every  other  intellectual  Frenchman  of  his  time. 

On    one    occasion,  when    Victor    Hugo   was 
charged  with  being  an  apostate,  he  replied  with 


1 82  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

not  less  truth  than  vanity,  "  They  call  me  an 
apostate ;  I  believe  myself  to  be  an  apostle." 
This  seems  accurately  to  define  his  place,  alike 
in  letters  and  in  politics.  He  has  been  the 
apostle,  truly,  of  a  new,  vital,  vigorous,  soulful 
literature,  which  is  moral,  elevating,  fervid, 
imaginative,  moving,  and  full  of  inspiration.  He 
has  been  the  apostle  of  a  republicanism  too 
broad  and  pure,  no  doubt,  for  this  generation  of 
Frenchmen.  But  it  is  the  apostle's  part  to  pre- 
pare for  the  future,  and  to  be  far  in  advance  of 
his  age ;  to  foreshadow  that  which  shall  rightly 
be,  long  after  his  own  death.  Already  he  sees 
the  approach  to  his  ideal  in  the  republic 
founded.  "  Kings,"  he  recently  said,  "  are  for 
nations  in  their  swaddling-clothes ;  France  has 
attained  her  majority."  In  the  "  Chatiments " 
he  declared  that  in  the  twentieth  century,  not 
only  would  America  wonderingly  exclaim, 
"What!  I  had  slaves?"  but  Europe  would  also 
say,  with  a  shudder,  "What!  I  had  kings?" 
And  so  the  apostle  has  become  a  prophet  also ; 
and  these  are  the  titles  by  which  he  himself 
would  be  most  proud  that  his  fame  should  de- 
scend to  posterity. 


VII. 

JOHN    BRIGHT. 

A  GREATER  contrast  cannot  easily  be  im- 
agined than  that  between  the  subject  of  the 
preceding  chapter  of  this  series,  and  that  of  the 
present  one.  Yet,  in  their  very  different  man- 
ners and  methods,  Victor  Hugo  and  John  Bright 
have  labored  during  their  lives  for  very  similar 
general  ends.  In  his  grandiose,  florid,  rhapso- 
dical way,  Victor  Hugo  has  been  asserting  the 
individuality  and  equality  of  man,  the  right  and 
necessity  of  political  and  social  liberty;  free- 
dom, too,  has  been  the  fervent  aspiration,  advo- 
cated with  a  strong,  straightforward,  obstinate, 
persistent,  dogged  perseverance,  of  him  who  has 
been  graphically  called  "the  great  Thor  of  Eng- 
lish politics."  The  rich  and  overflowing  imagi- 
nation of  the  Frenchman  has  led  him  to  envelop 
the  advocacy  of  his  cause  in  the  ornate  forms  of 
allegory,  drama,  poesy,  and  satire.  The  hard 
English  head  of  Bright  has  meantime  been  closely 
reasoning,  framing  solid  argument,  stoutly  and 


1 84  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

bravely  preaching  a  long  unpopular  creed  from 
the  hustings  and  the  platform.  Victor  Hugo's 
fancy  has  been  soaring  always  above  and  beyond 
the  region  of  practical  politics,  among  the  air- 
castles  of  an  ideal  state ;  John  Bright,  a  product 
of  British  common  sense  and  the  commercial 
shrewdness  of  industrial  Lancashire,  has  bounded 
his  aim  to  that  which  he  might  reasonably  hope 
to  attain  at  a  period  not  very  distant  from  that 
at  which  he  began  to  agitate.  Both  have  been, 
as  the  current  expression  is,  "  ahead  of  their 
time;  "  but  while  Hugo  has  his  mental  eye  fixed 
on  the  twentieth  century,  at  the  nearest,  John 
Bright  aims  to  build  greater  liberties  upon  the 
broad  foundations  of  the  British  Constitution  as 
he  goes.  Of  these  two  sincere  and  ardent  trib- 
unes of  the  people,  Hugo  rages,  anathematizes, 
loses  himself  in  a  bewildering  amplitude  of  mag- 
nificent rhetoric ;  while  Bright,  though  often 
strong  in  invective  and  stormy  indignation, 
clearly  never  loses  his  self-control,  nor  allows 
himself  to  overshoot  the  mark  he  has  set  up. 

Let  us  revert  to  a  very  critical  period  in  this 
country's  history;  the  early  summer  of  1863. 
We  were  in  the  midst  of  the  Rebellion ;  and  the 
cause  of  the  Union  seemed  dark  indeed.     Vicks- 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  1 85 

burg,  besieged,  had  not  yet  fallen.  Nor  was  it 
scarcely  the  worst  of  the  misfortunes  of  the  mo- 
ment, that  no  decisive  step  had  been  taken  in 
the  defeat  of  treason.  War  with  England  gravely 
threatened  us.  English  public  opinion  was 
roused  angrily,  and  it  seemed  overwhelmingly, 
against  us.  Palmerston  had  not  long  before 
made  a  bitterly  bellicose  speech  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  It  was,  at  that  moment,  an  act  of 
rare  courage  to  stand  up  in  the  face  of  English 
wrath,  and  defend  the  Northern  cause. 

Provided  with  a  letter  of  introduction  to  John 
Bright,  from  a  distinguished  member  of  the 
United  States  Senate,  I  repaired  one  afternoon 
in  early  June,  1863,  to  the  lobby  of  the  House 
of  Commons.  Something  was  to  be  said,  that 
evening,  about  American  affairs ;  and  this  was 
an  especial  attraction  to  an  American  about  to 
visit  the  "  great  debating  society  "  for  the  first 
time.  In  the  lobby  was  a  confused  crowd  of 
members  hurrying  in  and  out,  and  a  still  greater 
crowd  of  friends,  satellites,  and  anxious  constit- 
uents. Many  faces,  become  familiar  by  the  pho- 
tographs of  celebrities  in  the  London  shop  win- 
dows, were  recognized  as  the  bustle  became 
greater,  and    the    arrivals    more  numerous,  just 


1 86  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

before  the  House  was  called  to  order.  The 
grave,  sallow  countenance  of  Gladstone ;  Disra- 
eli, with  his  shock  of  glossy,  jet-black  curls,  his 
big  nose  and  thick  lips,  and  springy  gait;  the 
jaunty  premier,  Palmerston,  with  bushy  side- 
whiskers,  twinkling  gray  eyes,  and  hat  cocked 
airily  on  one  side  of  his  head ;  the  tall,  straight, 
square  form  of  Sir  George  Grey;  the  delicate 
intellectual  face  of  Sidney  Herbert;  the  round, 
blond  face  and  flat  nose  of  Lord  Stanley  (now 
Earl  of  Derby)  ;  and  the  pompous,  yet  rather 
attractive  aspect  of  Sir  John  Pakington ;  these 
were  observed  as  one  and  another  rapidly  passed 
within  the  guarded  door. 

The  letter  of  introduction,  with  a  card,  was 
duly  sent  in  to  Mr.  Bright,  and  I  took  my  place 
in  the  line  of  the  waiters  on  the  convenience  of 
noble  lords  and  honorable  gentlemen.  But  I 
had  not  long  to  tarry ;  for  presently  out  came, 
with  a  bustling  manner  and  brisk  step,  a  vigor- 
ous, full-bodied  gentleman,  whom  I  knew  at 
once  to  be  John  Bright.  He  glanced  rapidly 
around  upon  the  line  of  expectants;  and  in  a 
moment  recognized,  no  doubt  by  the  American 
type  of  the  features,  the  face  of  which  he  was  in 
search.     Drawing   me   aside  into  a  window,  he 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  1 8/ 

began  to  ask  a  number  of  rapid  questions  about 
the  war,  in  an  abrupt,  intent  way  which  was  soon 
seen  to  be  characteristic  of  him.  The  state  of 
feehng  in  the  North,  Grant's  prospects  at  Vicks- 
burg,  the  campaign  in  Virginia,  the  hkehhood  of 
emancipation,  were  all  asked  about,  the  questions 
following  close  upon  the  heels  of  each  preced- 
ing response.  Then,  learning  that  I  desired  to 
see  the  House  in  session,  he  said,  "  Follow  me, 
and  I  will  get  you  a  better  seat  than  you  can  se- 
cure in  the  strangers'  gallery." 

Thereupon  he  ascended  the  staircase  on  the 
right  of  the  entrance  to  the  House,  the  attend- 
ants bowing  low  on  either  side  as  he  passed ; 
and  I  soon  found  myself  seated  in  the  Speaker's 
gallery,  below  that  of  the  strangers,  whence  there 
was  an  excellent  view  of  the  House,  and  where  I 
found  myself  directly  behind  a  gallery  where 
were  seated  the  Prince  of  Wales,  the  Duke  of 
St.  Albans,  and  other  notabilities  of  high  rank. 

"  Shall  I  hear  you  this  evening,  Mr.  Bright?  " 
I  asked. 

"  It  may  be  that  I  shall  say  something  an  hour 
or  two  hence.  I  shall,  if  the  American  matter 
comes  up.  It  will  be  an  interesting  session,  and 
I  advise  you  to  wait." 


1 88  CEK  TAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

With  which,  and  with  a  parting  friendly  word 
added,  he  abruptly  left  the  gallery  and  I  soon 
after  saw  him,  with  his  light,  quick  step,  pass  up 
the  aisle,  and  take  his  seat  on  the  government 
side,  on  those  benches  "  below  the  gangway  " 
reserved  for  the  independent  members  of  the 
House. 

It  is  related  that  once  a  party  of  Americans 
entered  a  studio  where  a  fine  portrait,  just  com- 
pleted, was  standing  on  the  artist's  easel. 

"  Oh,"  said  one  of  the  Americans,  "  that  must 
be  John  Bull." 

"  No,"  quietly  responded  the  artist,  "  it's  John 
Bright." 

The  anecdote  forcibly  illustrates  the  truly  Brit- 
ish physical  type  of  the  Quaker  orator  and  states- 
man. In  personal  appearance,  certainly,  he  is 
an  Englishman  of  Englishmen.  Robuet,  though 
not  corpulent,  of  body;  with  a  round,  full  face, 
and  bold,  straight  nose  ;  his  countenance  rounded, 
open,  healthfully  ruddy,  having  a  remarkable 
purity  of  complexion  and  fine  texture  of  skin; 
the  eyes  large,  gray,  clear,  bright,  sometimes 
stern  and  defiant,  but  in  repose  often  gentle  and 
kindly ;  decision  and  vigor  most  plainly  ex- 
])ressed  in  the  resolute  mouth  and  firm  jaw  and 


JOHX  BRIGHT.  1 89 

chin ;  a  face  less  mobile  than  calm  and  set ;  the 
brow  broad  and  white,  and  arched  high  at  the 
top  ;  the  whole  frame  strong,  well-proportioned, 
almost  massive,  indicating  great  powers  of  en- 
durance, and  giving,  even  at  his  present  age,  no 
hint  of  that  delicacy  of  health  which  has  in 
later  years  impaired  his  public  activity.  In  his 
company,  one  has  a  keen  sense  of  his  power; 
one  feels  himself  in  the  presence  of  a  born  leader 
of  men.  He  holds  his  head  high,  and  looks  you 
and  every  one  full  in  the  face ;  and  that  with  a 
keen,  searching  glance  that  rather  robs  you  of 
your  ease.  Self-reliance,  honesty,  pride  of  in- 
tellect, resolution  —  nay,  even  intolerance  —  may 
be  read  in  his  expression. 

At  the  time  to  which  I  have  referred,  John 
Bright  seemed  almost  absorbed  by  his  interest 
in  the  American  struggle  ;  and  this  was,  of 
course,  the  circumstance  which  especially  at- 
tracted Americans  to  him,  and  made  them  eager 
to  hear,  see,  and  read  of  him.  He  then  stood 
almost  alone  as  the  outspoken  advocate  of  the 
Union  in  the  House  of  Commons.  Palmerston 
was  openly  hostile.  Lord  John  Russell  had 
proved  himself  unfriendly  at  the  very  outset  of 
the  war.    Gladstone  was  talking  about  the  South 


190  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

having  become  a  nation.  Roebuck  was  eagerly 
trying  to  bring  about  the  interference  of  Eng- 
land, with  the  co-operation  of  the  French  Em- 
peror. Disraeli,  who  was  at  heart  our  friend,  at 
this  period  thought  it  the  part  of  discretion  to 
be  silent.  Among  the  chiefs  and  orators  of  the 
House,  this  clear,  bold  voice  of  John  Bright's 
was  almost  the  only  one  ever  heard,  defending 
the  cause  of  liberty,  and  uttering,  amid  all  the 
gloom,  hopeful  prophecies.  Already,  before  the 
war  had  been  in  progress  a  year,  he  had,  in 
words  of  rare  fervor  and  eloquence,  foreshad- 
owed that  valiant  championship  of  the  North 
which  he  was  to  display,  in  stormy  times  and 
serene,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the 
struggle. 

"  Whether  the  Union  will  be  restored  or  not," 
he  said,  "  or  whether  the  South  will  achieve  an 
unhonored  independence  or  not,  I  know  not, 
and  I  predict  not.  But  this  I  think  I  know ;  that 
in  a  ioyN  years  —  a  very  few  years  —  the  twenty 
millions  of  freemen  of  the  North  will  be  thirty 
millions,  or  fifty  millions ;  a  population  equal 
to,  or  exceeding  that  of  this  kingdom.  When 
that  time  comes,  I  pray  it  may  not  be  said 
among  them,  that,  in  the  darkest  hour  of  their 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  191 

country's  trials,  England,  the  land  of  their  fa- 
thers, looked  on  with  icy  coldness,  and  saw  un- 
moved the  perils  and  calamities  of  her  children. 
.As  for  me,  I  have  but  this  to  say :  I  am  one  in 
this  audience,  and  but  one  in  the  citizenship  of 
this  country.  But  if  all  other  tongues  are  silent, 
mine  shall  speak  for  that  policy  which  gives 
hope  to  the  bondmen  of  the  South,  and  tends 
to  generous  thoughts  and  generous  words  and 
generous  deeds,  between  the  two  great  nations 
who  speak  the  English  language,  and  from  their 
origin  are  alike  entitled  to  the  English  name  !  " 

John  Bright  is  now  (1880)  in  his  sixty-ninth 
year.  He  is  two  years  younger  than  Gladstone 
and  six  younger  than  Lord  Beaconsfield  ;  and  as 
English  statesmen  are  a  peculiarly  vigorous  race, 
and  often  continue  their  public  activities  into 
the  eighties,  it  may  be  hoped  that  he  has  still 
some  years  of  labor  in  the  cause  of  reform  be- 
fore him.  His  public  life  began  in  1843,  when 
he  was  thirty-two  years  of  age,  in  which  year 
he  was  elected  to  Parliament  by  the  old  historic 
city  of  Durham.  Four  years  later,  he  took  his 
seat  for  the  first  time  as  the  representative  of 
the  great  progressive  constituency  of  Manches- 
ter.     His    career    in  the    House    of  Commons, 


192  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

therefore,  has  extended  over  a  period  of  thirty- 
seven  years. 

From  the  first  he  was  known  as  a  tribune  of 
the  people  and  an  apostle  of  reform.  Before 
entering  the  House,  he  had  greatly  distinguished 
himself  as  an  orator.  He  was  scarcely  twenty 
when  he  spoke  stirringly  to  his  fellow-townsmen 
of  Rochdale  in  favor  of  the  great  reform  bill. 
He  strenuously  advocated  the  abolition  of  church 
rates,  and  was  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  as 
well  as  most  fervent  agitators  in  favor  of  putting 
an  end  to  the  unjust  corn  laws.  He  preached 
free  trade  doctrines,  and  so  soon  began  to  be 
known  as  the  inveterate  foe  of  landed  privilege 
and  aristocratic  political  control. 

When  John  Bright  entered  Parliament,  it  was 
not  merely  unpopular,  it  was  fairly  odious  to  be 
recognized  as  holding  the  extreme  opinions  he 
boldly  avowed.  Social  ostracism,  the  distrust 
and  holding  aloof  of  men  of  all  parties,  the  most 
contemptuous  and  hatred-breeding  scoffs  of  al- 
most the  entire  British  press,  the  horror  of  the 
masses  of  not  only  educated  men,  but  of  the 
common  people,  inevitably  followed  the  utter- 
ance of  radical  principles.  For  years  and  years, 
John    Bright's   name  was   a   bugbear   in  British 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  1 93 

politics.  He  rested  under  a  perpetual  cloud  of 
obloquy.  The  men,  who,  like  noble  Richard 
Cobden,  were  brave  enough  to  stand  by  him, 
shared  the  stigma  cast  upon  himself.  There 
was,  however,  in  this  contumely  and  avoidance, 
on  the  part  of  party  leaders  and  the  party  rank 
and  file,  something  very  like  fear.  It  was  mon- 
strous that  such  sentiments  should  openly  be 
declared  in  the  House  of  Commons;  but  was  it 
not  also  dangerous,  especially  considering  that 
this  commercial  Quaker  who  uttered  them  could 
make  his  voice  heard,  and  was  not  at  all  dis- 
mayed, and  had,  moreover,  a  certain  power  of 
character  and  eloquence? 

At  all  points  he  was  at  vigorous  variance  with 
the  long-settled  convictions  and  prejudices  of 
Old  England;  and  when  the  Crimean  war  was 
imminent,  he  rose  to  the  greatest  height  of  elo- 
quence he  had  yet  displayed,  in  opposing  the 
big  British  armaments,  advocating  a  reduction 
of  the  forces,  and  pleading  for  a  permanent  pol- 
icy of  peace  and  non-intervention  in  European 
affairs.  So  long  ago,  he  foreshadowed  the  policy 
which  has  since  been  adopted  by  the  wisest  heads 
of  the  Liberal  party.  But  then  it  was  only  his 
masterly  eloquence  and  strength  of  character 
13 


194  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

which  saved  him  from  the  poHtical  annihilation 
which  the  Liberal  chiefs  would  gladly,  in  their 
wrath,  have  visited  upon  him.  Bright  was,  per- 
haps, the  only  man  in  Parliament  whom  the 
jaunty  Palmerston  could  not  laugh  or  sneer 
down.  Palmerston  was  then  omnipotent  in  Lib- 
eral councils;  though  if  ever  there  were  a  Tory 
at  heart,  it  was  he.  He  used  to  the  uttermost 
his  influence  over  the  dullest  prejudices  of  Eng- 
lishmen, to  disarm  this  troublesome  antagonist, 
who  stood  just  within  his  own  camp.  But  the 
calm  reader  of  the  annals  of  the  parliamentary 
duels  of  twenty  years  ago  will  have  no  doubt 
who  had  the  best,  at  least  in  intellectual  and 
prophetic  points  of  view,  of  those  formidable 
frays.  Opposition,  abuse,  vituperation  and  ridi- 
cule, were  the  food  that  made  this  Quaker  ath- 
lete stronger ;  the  jeers  of  Palmerston  only 
endowed  him  with  new  vigor  and  refreshed 
perseverance. 

There  came,  one  day,  as  if  out  of  a  clear  sky, 
a  thunderbolt  from  the  Radical  corner,  which 
sent  dismay  through  the  Liberal  ranks.  A  reso- 
lution was  sprung  upon  the  House,  in  favor  of 
household  suffrage.  The  right  to  vote  in  Eng- 
land at  that  time  was  restricted  by  a  high  prop- 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  1 95 

erty  —  that  is  rental  and  rating  —  qualification. 
The  Radicals  sought  to  reduce  this  to  the  mere 
occupancy  of  a  house,  however  small.  The  bat- 
tle of  household  suffrage  was  then  fought  with 
immense  fire  and  energy  by  Bright,  Cobden, 
and  that  most  learned  and  noble-minded  lawyer, 
William  Page  Wood.  So  splendidly,  indeed, 
did  Page  Wood  rush  to  the  charge,  that  when 
the  vote  on  the  resolution  was  proceeding,  and 
Bright  met  Wood  in  the  lobby,  he  grasped  him 
warmly  by  the  hand,  and  exclaimed,  "  When 
we  form  a  household  suffrage  cabinet,  you  shall 
be  its  chancellor." 

Eighteen  years  from  that  time,  it  was  an- 
nounced one  day  that  John  Bright  had  become 
one  of  her  Majesty's  ministers ;  and  quick  on 
the  heels  of  this  intelligence  came  the  news  that 
William  Page  Wood  had  been  raised  to  the  cov- 
eted woolsack,  with  the  title  of  Lord  Hatherley. 
It  was  not  in  a  household  suffrage  cabinet;  but 
despite  that,  the  realization  of  the  prophecy 
was  a  most  striking  circumstance.  Political 
prophecy,  indeed,  seems  a  real  gift  with  John 
Bright.  lie  seems  endowed  with  a  remarkable 
faculty  of  prevision.  He  has  foretold  many  of 
the  important  political  changes  which  have  taken 


196  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

place  in  recent  years  in  England ;  and  we  well 
know  how  his  prophecies  about  the  American 
Union  have  turned  out.  May  his  more  recent 
forecast  of  the  great  and  prosperous  destiny  be- 
fore us  prove  equally  true  ! 

In  a  speech  delivered  to  his  constituents  John 
Bright  once  declared  that  he  had  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century  "  endured  measureless  insult,  and 
passed  through  hurricanes  of  abuse."  But  after 
all,  this  was  only  showing  one,  and  that  the 
darker  side  of  the  estimation  in  which  he  was 
held  by  the  public.  If  he  was  the  terror  and 
bete  7ioir  of  all  shades  of  toryism  and  prescrip- 
tive prejudice,  he  was  also  the  idol  and  hope 
of  that  new,  vigorous,  radical,  bold-thinking 
class  which  had  rapidly  risen  to  large  influence 
and  electoral  power,  and  which  has  been  called 
the  "  Manchester  school."  Of  the  Manchester 
school  John  Bright  has  ever  been  the  apostle 
and  the  idol.  There  was  one  short  period,  in- 
deed, during  which  his  political  disciples  trem- 
bled lest  their  great  tribune  should  alienate 
himself  from  them.  This  was  when,  on  the  ac- 
cession of  Gladstone  to  the  Premiership  in  1868, 
John  Bright  entered  the  cabinet  as  President  of 
the  Board  of  Trade,  and  sat  as  the  colleague  of 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  1 97 

Peelite  baronets  and  whig  marquises.  It  seemed 
to  the  Manchester  radical,  at  that  moment,  as  if 
Mirabeau  had  once  more  kissed  the  hand  of 
Capet,  as  if  Rienzi  had  again  paid  court  to 
Colonna.  It  was  strange  to  hear  of  the  "  Great 
Thor"  dancing  attendance  at  Windsor,  flattered 
by  the  compHments  of  the  Princess  Royal,  hold- 
ing obsequious  speech  with  the  Queen,  and  wear- 
ing, like  a  very  ill-fitting  though  finely  decked 
garment,  the  title  of  Right  Honorable.  The 
question  arose,  has  Whiggery  gone  over  to 
Bright,  or  has  Bright  been  absorbed  by  Whig- 
gery? And  indeed,  there  were  signs  that  the 
Quaker  statesman  wavered  at  that  time  in  his 
radical  faith.  As  a  minister,  he  was  cautious, 
reticent,  and  as  Delphically  official  in  his  utter- 
ances as  the  veriest  old-fashioned  pupil  of  state- 
craft. His  opinions  seemed  to  grow  lukewarm 
and  moderate  in  the  official  atmosphere,  which 
was  so  unlike  the  invigorating  free  air  of  the  in- 
dependent benches  he  had  hitherto  breathed. 
But,  as  we  look  back  now  at  the  brief  period 
during  which  he  held  a  cabinet  portfolio,  w^e 
are  able  to  perceive  that  such  a  trust  had  only 
affected  him,  as  heavy  responsibilities  must  affect 
any  man  of  honest  purpose  and  sensitive  patri- 


198  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

otism.  He  felt  for  the  first  time  the  gravity  of 
the  task  of  governing;  for  the  first  time  saw 
questions  on  all  their  sides,  obstacles  in  all  their 
formidableness,  and  difficulties  which  he  had 
probably  never  before  suspected.  There  was 
one  other  circumstance  which  will  go  far  to  ex- 
plain John  Bright's  acceptance  of  office,  and  his 
caution  and  moderation  when  installed  in  high 
place.  This  was  his  thorough,  and  as  it  proved, 
justifiable  faith  in  his  chief.  He  undoubtedly 
knew  more  of  Gladstone's  real  feelings  and  in- 
tentions than  any  other  of  their  colleagues ;  and 
he  felt  that  Gladstone's  aims  and  his  own  were 
much  more  nearly  identical  than  people  in  gen- 
eral suspected.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
Bright's  influence  in  the  cabinet,  moreover,  which 
was  large — for  his  resignation  on  account  of  polit- 
ical diffisrences  would  probably  have  broken  it 
—  was  really  devoted  to  the  accomplishment  of 
reforms  which  he  had  long  advocated.  There 
is  no  question  that  that  article  of  his  creed  which 
demanded  "justice  to  Ireland,"  was  pressed  by 
him  upon  his  colleagues,  and  that  he  found  the 
mind  of  the  Premier  ripe  to  receive  it.  The  toil, 
the  anxieties  of  office,  and  perhaps  also  an  un- 
dercurrent of  consciousness  that  he  was  really 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  1 99 

out  of  place,  and  that  his  arena  was  otherwhere, 
soon  wore  upon  even  his  massive  constitution. 
His  health  broke  down,  and  he  retired  from  the 
Board  of  Trade;  to  enter,  in  1880,  Gladstone's 
second  cabinet  as  chancellor  of  the  Duchy  of  Lan- 
caster. No  sooner  had  the  restraints  of  authority- 
been  thrown  off,  and  his  health  to  a  large  degree 
been  restored,  than  he  resumed  the  great  part 
for  which  of  all  living  Englishmen  he  is  best 
fitted  —  that  of  a  tribune  of  the  people.  In 
his  later  career,  as  an  independent  member  of 
Parliament,  there  has  been  no  uncertain  sound 
in  John  Bright's  tones.  So  recently  as  in  the 
spring  of  1879,  we  find  him  denouncing  in  the 
old,  brave,  plain-spoken  and  impressively  elo- 
quent way,  the  existing  land  tenure  of  England, 
and  pressing  upon  English  opinion  the  crying 
necessity  of  abolishing,  once  for  all,  the  laws  of 
primogeniture  and  entail.  Hating  war,  and  a 
perhaps  too  intense  lover  of  peace,  he  has  ex- 
hausted a  most  copious  vocabulary  of  vitupera- 
tion and  epithet  in  denouncing  the  "  spirited 
foreign  policy"  of  Lord  Beaconsfield.  Indeed, 
in  John  Bright's  strong  and  fiery  hatred  of  tra- 
ditional abuses  and  aristocratic  privilege,  in  his 
fierce   scorn   of  Toryism  and  all   that  Toryism 


200  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

generates,  there  is  fanaticism  and  intolerance. 
His  mind  is  so  thoroughly  possessed  of  the  ini- 
quity of  Lord  Beaconsfield  and  all  his  following, 
that  he  cannot  accord  them  credit  for  any  good 
act,  for  any  motives  excepting  bad  and  vicious 
ones,  or  even  for  patriotism,  however  blundering 
and  mistaken.  Broad  and  liberal  and  even  cos- 
mopolitan as  is  the  calibre  of  his  mind,  here 
he  becomes  a  violent  partisan  and  a  relentless 
enemy;  and  on  this  subject  he  disdains  to  meas- 
ure his  words.  It  requires  a  large  amount  of 
courage  for  a  man  to  stand  up  in  such  a  country 
as  England  —  a  proud  land,  believing  intensely 
in  itself,  rather  contemptuous  of  foreign  methods, 
customs,  and  laws ;  a  land  which  is,  perhaps, 
best  of  all  described  as  "insular"  —  and  praise 
another  country  at  the  expense  of  his  own ;  es- 
pecially, to  praise  another  country  which  his 
own  has  always  been  in  the  habit  of  looking 
down  upon  and  condescending  towards,  and 
patronizing  by  fits  and  starts.  Yet  this  John 
Bright  has  done  more  than  once ;  and  more  em- 
phatically than  ever,  within  the  past  few  months. 
In  the  most  glowing  tribute  which  was  perhaps 
ever  paid  to  the  United  States  by  a  foreigner, 
he    contrasted    our    prosperity   with    England's 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  20I 

depression,  our  democratic  government  with 
England's  expensive  paraphernalia  of  royalty, 
our  little  army  with  England's  costly  legions, 
the  freedom  of  our  soil  with  England's  law- 
fettered  land  monopoly,  our  freedom  from 
alliances,  diplomatic  complications,  and  bur- 
densome colonies,  with  England's  constant  em- 
broilment in  European  politics,  and  England's 
perpetual  necessity  to  defend  distant  possessions 
at  an  enormous  cost  of  blood  and  money,  and 
ever  widening  care  and  responsibility.  Nor  did 
John  Bright  point  this  contrast  with  all  the  rich 
wealth  of  his  Saxon  eloquence  without  a  pur- 
pose. He  does  not  hesitate  to  hold  America  up 
to  England  as  an  example,  in  many  of  its  fea- 
tures to  be  followed.  He  would  have  English 
land  liberated  ;  he  would  withdraw  her  from  the 
entangling  alliances  of  the  continent;  he  would 
reduce  her  armaments ;  he  would  have  her  cease 
to  acquire  new  territory  in  savage  and  semi- 
civilized  lands ;  it  is  not  certain  that  he  would 
not  see  with  satisfaction  her  severance  from  the 
burdens  of  Indian  empire;  he  would  extend  the 
suffrage,  and  still  further  reform  the  House  of 
Commons,  so  that  it  might  be  more  truly  than 
now  the  representative  body  of  the  great  masses 
of  the  people. 


202  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

There  has  always  been  much  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  which  is  the  greater  orator,  Glad- 
stone, Beaconsfield,  or  John  Bright.  The  con- 
trast between  the  eloquence  of  the  three  is  very 
marked ;  by  contrast  only  can  their  various  ora- 
torical powers  be  compared.  But,  as  time  has 
gone  on,  the  numbers  of  those  who  give  the  pre- 
eminence in  this  respect  to  John  Bright  have 
rapidly  increased.  There  is  a  charm  of  musical 
sweetness,  and  a  glow  of  warmth,  of  earnestness 
and  enthusiasm,  about  Gladstone's  speeches, 
which  certainly  make  one  hesitate  to  judge  any 
one  his  superior  in  eloquence.  There  is  a  finish, 
a  subtlety  and  grace,  a  sparkle  and  a  fine-edged 
wit  about  Beaconsfield's  addresses,  which  make 
him  a  master  among  parliamentary  speakers, 
and  leave  him  facile princeps  in  his  own  peculiar 
style  of  forensic  oratory.  Bright's  eloquence, 
however,  is  a  marvellous  exhibition  of  simplicity 
combined  with  strength,  of  absolute  perfection 
of  language,  of  measured  ease  and  deliberation, 
of  natural  gifts  of  a  very  high  order  most  care- 
fully trained  and  finished,  of  powerful  appeal  to 
the  average  common  sense,  and  of  the  most  skil- 
ful fitting  of  the  utterance  to  the  thought.  The 
first  impression  of  Bright,  as  amid  the  most  abso- 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  203 

lute  Stillness  he  rises,  with  every  eye  upon  him 
and  every  ear  eagerly  intent,  to  address  the 
House  of  Commons,  is  far  more  striking  than 
the  first  impression  made  by  either  of  his  ora- 
torical rivals.  His  presence  at  once  attracts  and 
more  than  satisfies  the  eye.  His  snow-white, 
flowing  hair,  his  rotund  form,  his  erect  posture, 
his  perfect  self-possession,  his  large,  bright  gray 
eye,  his  clear,  strong  voice  that  immediately 
charms  the  ear,  take  possession  of  one  at  the 
very  outset  of  his  address.  As,  with  measured 
sentences,  he  proceeds,  you  are  constantly  struck 
by  the  simplicity,  directness,  purity,  and  fitness 
of  every  word  and  every  sentence.  "  His  lan- 
guage," says  a  shrewd  observer,  "  is  more  thor- 
oughly and  racily  English  than  that  of  any 
speaker  in  either  House."  Unlike  many  Eng- 
lish orators.  Bright  rarely  quotes  from  the  clas- 
sics. Robert  Lowe  loads  down  his  harangues 
with  a  wearying  wealth  of  quotations  from  Virgil 
and  Horace,  Homer  and  Herodotus.  Gladstone 
cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  often  adorn  his 
addresses  with  the  images  of  his  beloved  Greek 
masters.  Beaconsficld  not  seldom  turns  a  smooth 
joke  with  an  apt  borrowing  from  the  Latin.  At 
least  equal  to  either  of  these  in  the  abundance. 


204  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

the  beauty,  and  the  fitness  of  his  illustrations, 
Bright  almost  invariably  draws  them  from  two 
main  sources.  He  either  finds  in  the  master- 
pieces of  English  poetry  —  Shakespeare,  Chau- 
cer, Milton,  Spenser  —  the  materials  for  his 
similes ;  or  he  resorts  for  this  purpose  to  the 
Bible.  No  one  can  have  read  the  best  speci- 
mens of  English  and  American  eloquence,  with- 
out having  observed  what  telling  use  can  be 
made,  before  either  a  select  or  a  miscellaneous 
assemblage,  of  Biblical  allusions.  Illustrations 
from  that  high  and  universally  familiar  source 
have  a  power  peculiarly  their  own ;  and  cer- 
tainly no  orator  has  ever  made  more  powerful 
use  of  them  than  John  Bright.  Could  there 
ever  have  been  anything,  for  instance,  more 
effective  than  when,  during  the  debate  on  the 
Reform  Bill  of  1866,  he  made  use  of  the  story  of 
David's  escape  from  Achish,  King  of  Gath,  to 
brand  the  Liberal  bolters  as  inhabitants  of  the 
"  Cave  of  AduUam."  From  that  time  forth,  the 
"  Adullamites  "  were  as  much  a  recognized  party 
name  as  Whig  or  Tory.  More  recently,  speak- 
ing of  the  grumbling  discontent  of  the  Tories  at 
Gladstone's  policy,  he  humorously  declared  that, 
"  had  they  been  in  the  wilderness,  they  would 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  20$ 

have  complained  of  the  ten  commandments." 
The  fitness  and  force  of  his  illustrations  are 
equally  apparent  whether  Bright  draws  them  from 
secular  legend,  or  literature,  or  from  common, 
every-day  things  and  sayings.  Like  Disraeli,  he 
is  a  notable  inventor  of  nicknames  and  epithets ; 
and  hesitates  as  little  to  apply  them  right  and 
left.  He  once  alluded  very  effectively  to  Dis- 
raeli as  "  the  mystery  man  of  the  ministry ;  "  on 
another  occasion,  about  the  period  of  the  "  Adul- 
lamite"  defection  from  the  Liberals,  he  referred 
to  Mr.  Lowe  and  Mr.  Horsman  combined  as  a 
"  Scotch  terrier,  of  which  no  one  could  with  cer- 
tainty say  which  was  the  head  and  which  the 
tail."  Not  less  stinging  was  his  satire  upon  the 
Tory  minister,  Sir  Charles  Adderly,  that  "  I  hope 
he  thought  he  was  telling  the  truth ;  but  he  is 
rather  a  dull  man,  and  is  liable  to  make  blun- 
ders." Bright  is  always  readily  severe  upon 
pride  of  ancestry ;  and  once  said  of  the  ancestors 
of  a  man  who  boasted  that  they  had  come  over 
with  the  Conqueror,  that  "  I  never  heard  that 
they  did  anything  else."  Soon  after  John  Bright 
had  yielded  to  the  illness  which  compelled  his 
retiring  from  the  cabinet,  a  Tory  lordling  took 
occasion  to  remark  in  public  that  Providence,  in 


206  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

order  to  punish  Bright  for  the  misuse  of  his  tal- 
ents, had  afflicted  him  with  a  disease  of  the 
brain.  "  It  may  be  so,"  said  Bright  in  the  House 
of  Commoois,  after  his  recovery ;  "  but  in  any 
case,  it  will  be  some  consolation  to  the  friends 
and  family  of  the  noble  lord  to  know,  that  the 
disease  is  one  which  even  Providence  could  not 
inflict  upon  him  !  "  Sometimes  Bright's  images 
rise  into  regions  of  grandeur ;  and  at  such  times, 
they  never  pass  into  that  of  bathos,  though 
sometimes  approaching  near  it.  When  the  ne- 
gotiations were  going  on  at  Vienna,  with  a  view 
of  closing  the  Crimean  War,  Bright  made  a  pow- 
erful speech  in  favor  of  peace,  in  the  course  of 
which  he  used  the  finest  image,  perhaps,  that  he 
ever  uttered.  "  The  Angel  of  Death,"  he  said, 
with  deep,  slow,  solemn  voice  and  uplifted  hand, 
"  has  been  abroad  throughout  the  land ;  you 
may  almost  hear  the  beating  of  his  wings !  " 
"  That  was  a  noble  idea !  "  exclaimed  Cobden, 
meeting  him  afterwards  in  the  lobby,  "  But  if 
you  had  said  the  '  flapping '  of  his  wings,  the 
House  would  have  roared  you  down  with  laugh- 
ter." Many  other  passages  of  the  most  genuine 
eloquence  are  quoted  from  Bright's  speeches ; 
especially  two,  in  one   of  which  he  pathetically 


yOUX  BRIGHT.  207 

pictured  the  wrongs  of  Ireland,  and  in  the  other 
he  a  few  years  ago  defended  his  course  in  Par- 
liament before  his  constituents  at  Birmingham. 
He  has  always  seemed  to  take  special  delight  in 
throwing  ridicule  on  Disraeli ;  and  having  spo- 
ken of  him  as  the  "  mystery  man,"  he  afterwards 
somewhat  more  roughly  characterized  him  as 
"  the  mountebank  with  a  pill  for  the  earth- 
quake." A  very  marked  trait  of  Bright's  elo- 
quence is  its  simple,  but  profound  and  often 
thrilling  pathos.  His  speeches,  indeed,  have 
sometimes  been  described  as  monotonously 
sombre  and  gloomy ;  an  effect  only  relieved  by 
the  vivacity  of  his  manner  and  gesture.  But  in 
recent  years  this  sombreness  has  become  less 
and  less  noticeable,  as  he  has  emerged  from  the 
obloquy  and  hatred  inspired  by  his  early  and 
loud-voiced  radicalism,  and  has  become  a  real 
political  power  in  the  land.  Meanwhile  his 
power  in  the  use  of  pathos  has  ripened  and 
deepened.  "  For  the  expression  of  pathos," 
says  an  English  writer,  "  there  are  inexpressibly 
touching  tones  in  his  voice ;  tones  which  carry 
right  to  the  listener's  heart  the  tender  thoughts 
that  come  glowing  from  the  speaker's,  and  are 
clad   in  simple  words  as  they  pass  his  tongue." 


208  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

Especially  is  this  so,  when,  as  is  often  the  case, 
he  is  pleading  the  cause  of  the  oppressed,  or 
"  denouncing  a  threatened  wrong."  The  bold- 
ness and  aggressiveness  of  his  oratory  have  been 
already  illustrated  by  his  epithets  and  his  per- 
sonal characterizations.  "  Mr,  Bright's  rhetoric," 
says  one,  "  has  certainly  a  great  deal  of  the 
clenched  fist  in  it;  and  when  it  exhibits  the 
open  hand,  it  is  usually  to  administer  a  slap  in 
the  face."  But  if  a  man's  eloquence  may  be 
tested  by  its  palpable  results,  by  its  hold  upon 
the  assemblies  it  addresses,  by  its  conversions 
and  inspiration  of  multitudes,  by  its  quotable 
properties,  by  its  use  of  every  sub-art  of  oratory, 
from  appropriateness  of  gesture  and  fitness  of 
language  to  the  skilful  wielding  of  rhetoric,  sar- 
casm, humor,  pathos,  scorn,  persuasiveness,  and 
logical  force,  it  is  very  certain  that  John  Bright 
is  one  of  the  world's  great  orators. 

Is  John  Bright  also  a  statesman?  He  once 
himself  said  that  the  name  of  statesman  was  so 
often  misapplied,  and  has  taken  on  so  often  an 
unenviable  significance,  that  he  cared  very  little 
to  have  it  applied  to  him,  A  statesman  of  the 
old-fashioned,  official,  mysterious,  office-drilled, 
adroitly  managing,  compromising   sort,  he  cer- 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  209 

tainly  is  not.  No  man  could  be  more  unlike 
Palmerston,  or  Russell,  or  Pitt,  or  even  Sir  Rob- 
ert Peel,  than  he.  His  experience  of  official 
responsibility  was,  as  has  been  seen,  brief,  and 
not  very  fruitful  in  practical  evidences  of  admin- 
istrative capacity.  Indeed,  the  Board  of  Trade 
scarcely  furnishes  a  scope  for  broad  measures 
of  public  policy,  or  widely  extending  reforms. 
John  Bright's  main  use  in  the  Cabinet,  indeed, 
was  as  a  participant  in  its  general  councils;  as 
the  adviser  of  Gladstone  in  such  imperial  matters 
as  the  disestablishment  of  the  Irish  church,  and 
the  abolition  of  purchase  in  the  British  army. 
He  has  not  been  himself  the  originator  of  many 
important  measures,  nor  the  author  of  many 
momentous  bills.  But  in  another  sense,  John 
Bright  may  claim  the  title  of  statesman  in  its 
best  and  highest  meaning.  He  is  surely  not, 
like  Victor  Hugo,  a  declaimer,  prophet,  apostle 
only.  His  view  of  politics  and  events  is  much 
more  Englishly  practical.  Radical  and  some- 
times extreme  as  his  public  life  has  been,  it  has 
had  a  strong  leaven  of  good  sense,  and  has  often 
shown  a  keen  discrimination  of  what  has  been 
and  what  has  not  been  possible  to  attain.  He 
has  seldom  or  never  lost  himself  in  fine  dreams 
14 


2IO  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

of  an  ideal  future ;  while  yet  he  has  not,  like  the 
technical  statesman,  confined  himself  to  the  cal- 
culation and  detail  of  the  present.  His  sweep 
of  vision  has  been  broad,  and  before  him,  more 
than  behind  or  around  him.  His  mind  has  been 
clear  outside  of  and  above  considerations  of  the 
precedents  and  usages  of  the  past.  He  has  ever 
abhorred  the  Tory  idea  that  whatever  is,  is  right. 
He  has  boldly  aimed  to  destroy,  but  he  has 
always  known  very  well  what  he  would  put  in 
place  of  the  thing  destroyed.  His  bump  of 
political  veneration  is  small  indeed ;  but  he  is 
not  by  any  means  a  revolutionist  pure  and 
simple.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  indeed,  that 
John  Bright  has  set  an  indelible  mark  on  the 
legislation  of  his  time ;  that  his  influence  has 
been  large  in  effecting  not  only  broad,  but  per- 
fectly practicable  reforms.  He  had  much  to 
do  with  bringing  about  the  repeal  of  the  corn 
laws.  He  proposed  an  amendment  to  the  meas- 
ure for  abolishing  church  rates,  which  went  far 
towards  making  it  an  effective  instrument.  A 
profound  student  of  India,  and  the  relations  of 
that  great  dependency  to  the  British  Empire,  he 
has  more  than  once  brought  about  modifications 
in  its  government  which  have  vastly  improved  it. 


JOHN  BRIGHT.  2  1 1 

He  was  one  of  the  moving  spirits  who  succeeded 
in  securing  the  famous  Cobden  treaty  of  com- 
merce with  France ;  and  from  his  hps  came  the 
earhest  proposal  of  an  arbitration  court  for  set- 
thng  the  Alabama  difficulty  between  England 
and  the  United  States.  Nor  can  it  be  justly  de- 
nied that  his  speeches  on  the  Eastern  question, 
though  he  sat  with  a  hopeless  minority  on  the 
opposition  benches,  have  had  a  powerful  effect 
in  shaping,  by  the  formation  and  inspiration  of 
public  opinion,  England's  foreign  policy. 

There  was,  therefore,  much  injustice  in  the 
epigram  of  one  of  his  opponents,  that  John 
Bright  "  possesses  Cicero's  eloquence,  and  Cati- 
line's love  of  conspiracy."  No  man  could  be 
further  from  assuming  the  role  of  a  conspirator. 
Whatever  Bright  has  said  or  done  has  been 
open  and  above  board.  While  sometimes  bitter 
in  his  denunciation  of  royal  extravagance,  he  has 
never  been  disloyal  to  the  person  of  the  Queen ; 
whose  virtues,  on  the  other  hand,  he  has  often 
extolled  with  warm  and  evidently  sincere  pane- 
gyric. While  he  has  boldly  spoken  of  the 
House  of  Lords  in  contemptuous  tones,  as  the 
last  refuge  of  political  ignorance  and  passion,  it 
is  doubtful  whether  he  would  engage  in  a  crusade 


212  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

against  the  existence  of  that  body ;  lest  the  evils 
brought  about  by  that  overturning  should  prove 
to  overweigh  the  good. 

His  eloquence  has  always  captivated,  and  of- 
ten convinced  the  multitudes  who  have  thronged 
everywhere  to  hear  him ;  his  arduous  and  en- 
thusiastic service  in  the  cause  of  the  oppressed 
has  endeared  him  to  thousands  who  never  heard 
his  clear,  clarion  voice,  or  beheld  his  flowing 
white  hair  and  his  sturdy  English  frame;  while 
his  friendship,  so  thoroughly  tried,  for  his  kins- 
men across  the  seas,  will  yield  him  as  great 
honor  from  future  generations  of  Americans  as 
the  name  of  Chatham  receives  from  ours. 


VIII. 

THREE   EMPERORS. 

/^F  the  many  World's  Exhibitions  that  have 
^"^^  taken  place  within  the  past  thirty  years, 
perhaps  the  one  which  most  deeply  impressed 
those  who  witnessed  it,  and  which  will  linger 
longest  in  the  memory  of  men,  was  that  held  at 
Paris  in  the  summer  of  1867.  It  was  not,  per- 
haps, that  its  display  of  the  products  of  human 
industries  and  arts  was  the  most  various  and 
elaborate ;  or  that  the  magnificence  of  the  build- 
ings and  grounds  which  included  these  exceeded 
that  of  other  exhibitions ;  or  because  of  the 
recreations  which  Paris  so  bountifully  —  and  at 
such  extraordinary  prices — provided  its  myriad 
guests  of  all  nations.  The  distinctive  feature  of 
the  exhibition  of  1867  —  that  which  made  it 
altogether  exceptional,  unique,  unprecedented 
—  was  its  display  of  human  and  personal  pa- 
geantry. Napoleon  III.,  then  apparently  at  the 
height  of  his  power  and  imperial  splendor,  em- 
ployed one  masterly  device  to  lend  unrivalled 


214  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

glory  to  the  festival.  To  it  he  lured  in  turn 
nearly  every  considerable  potentate  of  the  earth. 
Emperors,  Sultans,  Shahs,  were  his  daily  guests. 
Paris  revelled  in  a  perpetual  round  of  gorgeous 
fetes,  of  which  the  central  figures  were  the 
greatest  rulers  of  Europe  and  Asia.  The  stran- 
ger abiding  there  saw  pass  before  him,  as  in  a 
panorama,  the  personified  might  of  the  nations, 
surrounded  by  all  the  traditional  paraphernalia 
of  majesty,  until  he  who  was  but  a  King  of  Por- 
tugal, or  a  Grand  Duke  of  Mecklenburg,  passed 
almost  unnoticed  amid  the  loftier  figures. 

And  among  these  potentates,  who  thus  lent 
themselves  to  reflect  a  greater  lustre  upon  the 
crown  of  the  parvenu  Bonaparte  (whom  once 
they  had  disdainfully  refused  to  recognize  at  all), 
by  all  odds  the  most  conspicuous  were  the  three 
monarchs  who  still,  at  seventeen  years'  dis- 
tance, rule  the  three  most  powerful  empires  of 
continental  Europe.  The  Czar  Alexander  and 
King  William  of  Prussia  (now  Emperor  of  Ger- 
many) were  in  Paris  at  the  same  time,  attended 
by  their  two  famous  chancellors,  Gortschakoff 
and  Bismarck,  and  accompanied  by  their  stal- 
wart sons  and  heirs ;  and  it  was  my  fortune  to 
see  them  both,  more  than  once,  riding  through 


THREE  EMPERORS.  21$ 

the  streets  beside  the  Emperor  Napoleon,  in  one 
of  those  enormous  old-fashioned  royal  coaches 
which  had  been  dragged  out  of  their  dusty  ob- 
scurity to  lend  an  air  of  ancient  royalty  to  the 
occasion.  The  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  of  Aus- 
tria came  later,  alone ;  and  received,  unsharing  it 
with  others,  the  profuse  hospitalities  of  his  "well- 
beloved  brother  "  of  France.  However  strongly 
imbued  he  might  be  with  Republican  ideas,  no 
American  could  witness  these  hereditary  rulers  of 
men  without  curiosity  and  interest.  There  is  a  ro- 
mance about  kingship,  to  the  citizen  of  a  distant 
republic,  which  the  subjects  of  kings  never  feel. 
It  does  not  partake  of  awe,  and  has  no  essence 
of  loyalty  to  the  principle  of  heredity  in  power. 
It  is  purely  picturesque ;  to  see  a  famous  sov- 
ereign is  like  finding  the  hero  of  an  old  romance 
in  real  life.  The  contrast,  too,  between  the 
stately  accessories  that  surround  a  king,  the 
ceremonial  dignities,  the  military  accompani- 
ments, and  the  simplicity  of  republican  custom, 
adds  its  glamour  to  the  curiosity  thus  aroused 
and  gratified.  It  was,  therefore,  with  eagerness 
that  I  availed  myself  of  the  opportunity  not  only 
to  witness  the  pageantry  with  which  these  sov- 
ereigns appeared,  but  to  scrutinize  their  features, 


2l6  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

to  observe  their  movements,  to  watch  the  chang- 
ing expressions  of  their  countenances.  The 
memory  of  their  long  descent  from  rude  rulers 
and  doughty  warriors  and  of  their  famous  prede- 
cessors—  of  Rurick  and  Rudolph,  of  Frederick 
Von  Zollern  and  Vater  Fritz,  of  Peter  the  Great 
and  the  wicked  Catherine,  of  Maria  Theresa  and 
Frederick  Barbarossa  —  aided  much  to  intensify 
the  gratification  I  felt  at  beholding  these  men 
made  great  by  right  of  birth. 

Much  more  interesting  do  these  three  poten- 
tates become,  when  it  is  added  that  each  is  a 
man  of  decided  ability  and  of  conspicuous  vir- 
tues. We  will  not  stop  to  discuss  the  problem 
of  the  heredity  of  brains,  or  the  transmission 
of  mental  qualities  in  the  blood ;  or  to  decide 
whether  or  not  the  royal  lines  of  Europe  prove 
or  disprove  Mr.  Galton's  attractive  and  ingen- 
ious theory.  It  is  at  least  certain  that,  in  our 
own  day,  the  realms  of  Europe  are  remarkably 
fortunate  in  the  abilities  and  personal  characters 
of  their  royal  heads.  No  nation  is  to-day  cursed 
by  a  very  bad  or  a  very  imbecile  ruler.  Since 
the  deposition  of  Bomba  in  Naples  and  of  Isa- 
bella in  Spain,  no  crying  scandal  has  clung  to 
a   European   throne.       On    the   other   hand,    a 


THREE  EMPERORS.  21/ 

large  majority  of  the  sovereigns  betray  more 
than  average  capacity,  and  more  than  ordi- 
narily good  personal  traits.  The  Queen  of 
England  is  a  model  of  strong  good  sense  and 
domestic  virtue.  The  Kings  of  Italy,  Portugal, 
Spain,  and  Belgium  are  wise  and  liberal  rulers, 
content  to  be  constitutional,  and  to  govern  ac- 
cording to  the  wishes  of  their  people.  The 
King  of  Sweden  is  a  man  of  culture,  and  politi- 
cally sagacious  as  well  as  a  talented  poet.  The 
King  of  Denmark  is  a  mild  and  popular  mon- 
arch, a  pattern  Scandinavian  father  of  a  well- 
brought-up  family  of  charming  children.  The 
King  of  Holland  is  rather  dull,  but  not  aggres- 
sively offensive  to  his  subjects.  The  King  of 
Bavaria  is  a  musical  monomaniac,  but  has  very 
little  governing  to  do,  being  relieved  mostly  of 
such  cares  by  his  subordination  to  the  German 
Empire.  The  last  may  also  be  said  of  the  Kings 
of  Wiirtemberg  and  Saxony,  who  are,  moreover, 
estimable  and  amiable  German  gentlemen,  sym- 
pathetic with  the  artistic  tastes  of  their  subjects, 
and  inspiring  a  patriarchal  respect  and  affection 
in  their  hearts. 

Returning  to  the  trio  of  Emperors,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  of  their  excellence  of  personal  traits, 


2l8  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

their  more  than  common  ability,  or  the  affection 
with  whicli  they  are  regarded  by  the  milhons 
whom  they  rule.  In  these  modern  and  revolu- 
tionary days,  the  individual  characters  of  heredi- 
tary monarchs  count,  perhaps,  for  less  and  less 
every  year.  But  no  one  will  question  that  the 
characters  of  the  three  Emperors  have  had  very 
much  to  do  with  current  events  in  Europe  dur- 
ing the  past  quarter  of  a  century.  Two  of  them 
are  still  absolute  despots ;  the  third  was  so  dur- 
ing the  first  eighteen  years  of  his  reign.  It  is 
certain  that  it  was  the  Czar's  personal  act  to 
emancipate  the  serfs ;  that  it  was  largely  owing 
to  William's  military  tastes  and  training  that 
Prussia  became  the  head  of  a  unified  Germany ; 
and  that  a  less  wise  or  less  patriotic  sovereign 
than  Francis  Joseph  might  have  failed  to  concil- 
iate Hungary,  and  have  refused  to  grant  a  con- 
stitution to  his  dual  realm. 

Of  the  Imperial  trio,  William  of  Germany  is 
at  once  the  senior  in  point  of  age,  and  the  junior 
in  the  number  of  years  that  he  has  reigned ; 
while  Francis  Joseph  is  at  once  the  youngest 
man  and  the  oldest  sovereign.  Francis  Joseph 
is  about  fifty,  ascended  the  throne  in  1848,  and 
has  reigned  nearly  thirty-two  years.     William  is 


THREE  EMPERORS.  219 

eighty-three,  ascended  the  throne  in  1862,  and 
has  reigned  eighteen  years.  Alexander  is  sixty- 
two,  ascended  the  throne  in  1855,  and  has  reigned 
just  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

While  the  sovereigns  of  Russia  and  Austria 
are,  in  personal  appearance  and  bearing,  modern 
Emperors,  William  of  Germany  has  a  certain 
quaint  air  and  flavor  about  him  of  real  old-time, 
typical  royalty.  His  big,  stalwart,  strongly  knit 
frame,  which  at  eighty-four  sustains  bravely  the 
fatigue  of  military  pageantry  and  the  crowding 
business  of  a  vast  state ;  his  lofty,  knightly,  yet 
courteous  bearing ;  his  clear,  cold,  slowly  gazing 
light-blue  eye ;  his  finely  arched  and  tufted  eye- 
brows of  snowy  white;  his  sweeping  military 
mustache ;  his  strong,  broad  chin  and  jaw,  and 
thin  lips ;  his  air  of  having  ever  the  conscious- 
ness of  majesty;  his  voice,  with  its  command- 
ing tones,  its  thick  Berlinese  accent,  its  slow  and 
measured  cadence,  that  of  one  who  chooses  his 
words  and  expects  to  be  listened  to ;  his  fault- 
less memory,  a  trait  that  the  warrior  sovereigns 
of  old  cultivated  and  prided  themselves  upon ; 
his  fondness  for  the  table,  for  the  lusty  sports  of 
the  Fatherland,  for  domestic  reunions,  for  mili- 
tary show  and  the  grim  realities  of  war,  —  all 


220  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

stamp  him  as  the  stahvart  monarch  of  a  stahvart 
people,  the  successor  of  Hochmeisters  and  Kur- 
fiirsts,  who  boldly  typifies  alike  the  physical  and 
the  mental  traits  of  his  rough  and  stormy  ances- 
tors. With  the  proud  bearing  of  a  knight  of 
the  Hospitallers,  his  head  ever  high  in  air,  Wil- 
liam has  the  thorough  patriarchal  good-nature 
of  the  Teuton.  Anecdotes  are  related  of  him, 
exceedingly  expressive  of  his  quaint,  blunt, 
homely  character,  which  we  should  never  think 
of  hearing  related  of  his  brother  Emperors. 
Once  at  a  state  ball,  he  saw  a  young  officer 
rather  rudely  turn  his  back  on  an  English  lady 
of  rank.  The  Emperor  strode  up  to  him,  took 
him  by  the  shoulder,  and  turned  him  sharply 
round.  "  Never  turn  your  back  to  a  lady,  sir," 
he  said  in  his  thick,  loud  voice.  On  another 
occasion,  he  observed  an  officer  dancing  awk- 
wardly ;  and  at  once  sent  an  aide  to  him,  with 
the  command  that  he  must  not  dance  again  till 
he  could  dance  better.  The  kindliness  of  his 
nature  —  a  rough,  bearish,  but  very  genuine 
kindliness  —  is  illustrated  by  a  hundred  anec- 
dotes always  afloat  in  Germany.  Once,  not  long 
after  the  splendid  victory  of  Sadowa,  he  was 
strolling  through  the  gardens  of  the  Kursaal  at 


THREE  EMPERORS.  221 

Ems,  when  he  met  an  old  soldier,  who  had  been 
badly  wounded  on  the  Bohemian  battle-field, 
hobbling  along  with  difficulty  on  his  crutches. 
The  old  soldier,  on  perceiving  his  sovereign, 
hastily  took  off  his  hat,  which  fell  from  his  hands 
to  the  ground.  William  at  once  stooped,  picked 
up  the  hat,  and  put  it  upon  the  veteran's  head. 
The  soldier  began  to  deprecate  a  favor  of  which 
he  thought  himself  unworthy.  "  Tut,  tut,  my 
worthy  man,"  replied  the  King,  "  William  reigns 
at  Berlin ;  but  this  day  he  is  happy  to  serve  at 
Ems." 

The  German  Emperor's  habits  are  such  as 
may  be  inferred  from  the  slight  glimpse  of  his 
traits  already  given.  At  eighty-three  he  is  to  all 
appearance  as  hale  and  vigorous,  as  clear  of  in- 
tellect and  as  cheerful  in  disposition,  as  capable 
of  enduring  physical  fatigue,  as  indefatigable  in 
the  performance  of  his  political  and  military 
tasks,  as  he  was  when  he  came  to  the  throne. 
His  appetite  is  still  Teutonic  in  its  capacity,  and 
he  still,  as  for  years,  goes  sturdily  through  the 
severe  routine  of  every  day,  which  brims  with 
employment  for  him.  He  may  be  seen  periodi- 
cally inspecting  his  pet  regiments,  sometimes 
seated  on  his  big  vv^hite  horse,  remaining  firmly 


222  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

fixed  in  the  saddle  for  hours  together,  and  some- 
times on  foot,  striding  with  strong  tread  athwart 
the  front  of  a  long  line  of  grenadiers,  in  the 
Schloss-Platz  at  Potsdam.  William  is  and  always 
has  been  an  early  riser.  Leaving  a  by  no  means 
luxurious  couch  with  the  dawn,  his  first  act  is  to 
read  a  chapter  in  the  Bible.  This  betrays  to  us 
one  of  his  most  conspicuous  traits.  Like  his 
great  chancellor,  Bismarck,  the  Emperor  is  a 
firm  believer  in  Protestant  Christianity.  His 
piety,  too,  has  all  the  simplicity  and  directness 
of  a  nature  too  frank  and  honest  ever  to  assume 
religious  faith  as  a  cloak.  Those  who  remember 
his  remarkable  despatches  to  his  wife  from  the 
seat  of  war  in  1870,  cannot  have  failed  to  be 
struck  with  the  constant  allusions  to  his  grati- 
tude to  God,  and  the  reference  of  events  to  the 
divine  source.  There  was  something  quite  Crom- 
wellian  in  their  blunt  utterance  of  fervidly  pious 
faith ;  nor  did  any  one  question  that  all  that  he 
expressed,  he  deeply  felt. 

Having  performed  his  devotions  the  Emperor, 
booted,  spurred,  and  in  the  military  costume  he 
almost  invariably  wears,  goes  into  his  study,  a 
room  looking  out  upon  the  square  in  front  of  the 
palace.    From  its  window  he  may,  if  he  chooses. 


THREE  EMPERORS.  223 

derive  daily  inspiration  from  the  noble  eques- 
trian statue  of  the  great  Frederic,  that  stands  in 
the  square.  He  takes  his  place  at  a  little  desk 
in  the  corner  of  the  study,  where  a  small  cup  of 
coffee  is  served  to  him,  after  partaking  of  which 
he  rapidly  scans  the  morning  newspapers.  The 
heavy  mail  which  has  just  arrived  next  claims 
his  attention,  and  it  is  no  slight  task  to  go 
through  it.  He  makes  notes  of  instructions  to 
his  secretaries  on  the  envelopes,  and  places  them 
in  the  large  bags  which  are  ready  to  his  hand  on 
the  floor.  The  first  audience  is  given  to  an  aide- 
de-camp,  who  makes  each  morning  a  report  on 
the  state  of  the  garrisons  in  Berlin ;  and  then  the 
Emperor  gives  the  aide  a  list  of  the  persons  he 
will  receive.  It  is  now  perhaps  half-past  nine, 
and  time  for  breakfast.  William  proceeds  to  the 
Empress's  apartments,  and  greets  her  for  the  first 
time  in  the  day;  and  there  the  Imperial  couple 
sit  down  to  a  substantial  German  breakfast. 
While  at  table,  the  bill  of  fare  for  dinner  is 
brought,  inspected,  and  approved.  The  venera- 
ble pair  almost  invariably  breakfast  alone.  The 
repast  leisurely  discussed  and  over,  they  go 
down  into  the  luxurious  saloons  that  overlook 
the  Platz,     Here  they  are  joined  by  the  Crown 


224  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

Prince  and  Princess,  and  the  Empress  reads  aloud 
an  hour  or  two,  while  her  lord  sits  in  a  luxurious 
arm-chair.  Later  in  the  morning,  the  Emperor 
goes  to  his  official  reception-room,  and  there  re- 
ceives the  officers  of  his  household,  persons  to 
whom  he  has  accorded  an  audience,  ministers, 
ambassadors,  and  military  officers.  Then  fol- 
lows, in  the  Emperor's  presence,  the  Cabinet 
council.  He  sits  at  the  head  of  a  long  table, 
covered  with  green  baize,  surrounded  by  his 
advisers ;  and  there  the  destinies  of  Germany 
and  Europe  are  discussed,  and  mighty  events 
have  now  and  then  been  decreed.  This  room, 
also,  looks  out  upon  the  spacious  Platz ;  and 
often,  in  the  middle  of  the  day,  may  the  venera- 
ble monarch  be  seen  standing  at  one  of  the  win- 
dows, looking  out  at  the  people  passing  to  and 
fro,  and  chivalrously  returning  their  respectful 
obeisances.  If  a  military  company  marches  by, 
he  straightens  up,  buttons  his  military  coat  to 
the  throat,  and  with  erect,  martial  bearing,  gives 
it  the  regulation  salute.  The  back  of  the  day's 
work  is  broken  by  three  o'clock,  by  which  time 
the  Emperor  has  lightly  lunched  on  black  bread, 
a  bit  of  cold  meat,  and  a  glass  or  two  of  Moselle. 
He  then  begins  to  take  his  ease,  and  indulge  in 


THREE  EMPERORS.  22$ 

the  lighter  duties  and  pleasures  of  royalty.  He 
spends,  perhaps,  an  hour  or  two  looking  at  his 
books  and  maps,  examining  his  new  works  of 
art,  of  which  he  is  passionately  fond,  and  chat- 
ting with  his  wife  or  son.  Then,  seated  in  an 
open  carriage,  drawn  by  a  span  of  coal-black 
horses,  he  takes  a  rapid  drive  through  the  Under 
den  Linden,  and  around  the  Thiergarten.  Every- 
where he  is  received  with  unmistakable  signs  of 
the  veneration  and  affection  of  his  subjects ;  to 
their  greetings  he  responds  with  smiles  and  gra- 
cious wavings  of  his  hand.  No  sooner  has  he 
returned  to  the  palace  than  he  finds  himself 
closeted  with  Bismarck,  who  has  brought  the 
daily  report  of  the  state  of  the  German  Empire. 
It  is  no  doubt  a  relief  when  the  grim  chancellor 
retires,  and  his  somewhat  tired  majesty  may  sit 
down  to  a  frugal  but  plenteous  dinner,  of  which 
he  partakes  alone  with  the  Empress.  It  is  only 
occasionally  that  there  are  guests  at  the  table ; 
at  these  rare  times  the  guests  are  few.  It  is  a 
thoroughly  quiet,  simple,  domestic  meal.  The 
brief  interval  between  dinner  and  the  opera  or 
theatre  is  spent  in  reading  letters  and  telegrams, 
and  conferring  with  secretaries,  —  the  lingering 
remains  of  the  state  toils  of  the  day.  William  is 
15 


226  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

intensely  fond  both  of  the  opera  and  the  drama. 
Nearly  all  his  evenings  are  spent  at  one  or  the 
other ;  and  there  alone,  it  would  appear,  can  he 
entirely  throw  aside  the  burdens  and  cares  of 
sovereignty,  and  thoroughly  enjoy  himself.  He 
is  quite  German  in  his  enthusiasm  for  music,  and 
it  is  a  serious  obstacle  which  can  keep  him  away 
from  the  first  representation  of  a  masterpiece  by 
a  famous  composer. 

The  Emperor  William  prides  himself  on  being 
"  the  father  of  his  people."  He  bears  himself 
easily  and  naturally  in  the  r61e  of  a  royal  patri- 
arch. His  paternal  care  and  solicitude  for  his 
subjects  are  displayed  alike  in  the  assiduity  with 
which  he  devotes  his  labors  to  matters  of  state, 
and  in  the  grave  gentleness  with  which  he  re- 
sponds to  their  salutations.  There  are  indul- 
gence and  kindness  in  his  patriarchal  bearing; 
but  the  Prussians  have  long  since  learned  that, 
though  genial,  his  rule  is  thoroughly  autocratic. 
There  is  at  least,  in  the  palace,  no  idea  of  the 
concession  of  popular  liberties.  When  his  sub- 
jects appear  to  be  getting  impatient  of  the  re- 
straints of  autocratic  government,  and  demand 
some  modicum  of  constitutional  freedom,  the 
venerable  monarch  seems  to  smile  a  lofty  smile, 


THREE  EMPERORS.  22/ 

and  has  the  air  of  saying,  "  Why,  really,  my 
children,  you  are  crying  for  the  moon  !  "  Among 
all  the  good  things  William  has  done  for  Prussia 
and  for  Germany,  among  all  the  glories  and  pow- 
ers that  he  has  won  for  them,  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  find  a  single  act  designed  to  share  with 
the  people  the  government  of  the  nation.  He  is 
a  despot,  though  a  genial  and  loving  despot; 
and  Germany  must  probably  await  the  advent  of 
a  less  popular  ruler,  before  she  can  hope  to  win 
that  freedom  which  seems  to  us  the  only  proper 
complement  and  crowning  of  her  unity. 

Between  the  stalwart,  bluff,  and  hearty  old 
German  Emperor,  and  his  nephew,  the  Czar  of 
the  Russias,  the  contrast  is  very  striking.  It  is 
true  that  Alexander  II.  had  a  German  mother 
(William's  sister),  received  his  education  in  Ger- 
many, and  in  tastes  and  character  seems  more 
of  the  mild  and  studious  German  type  than  of 
that  of  the  rude,  bold  Russian.  In  many  of  the 
kingly  qualities  of  William,  however,  he  is  quite 
wanting;  while  he  has  neither  the  haughty  and 
cruel  spirit  of  his  father,  the  Czar  Nicholas,  nor 
the  active  temperament  and  gracious  bearing  of 
his  uncle,  the  Czar  Alexander  I.  He  is  perhaps 
the  gentlest  and  most  humane  and  best  meaning 


228  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

sovereign  who  ever  sat  on  the  Muscovite  throne. 
His  inclinations  have  always  been  manifestly  for 
peace,  progress,  and  improvement.  So  little  did 
he  inherit  of  the  military  taste  and  spirit  of  his 
ancestry,  that  Nicholas  his  father  disliked,  al- 
most despised  him,  and  had  at  one  time  serious 
thoughts  of  excluding  him  from  the  succession. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  Alexander  has 
always  shrunk  from  making  war,  and  that  he 
has  never  without  reluctance  entered  upon  it. 
His  dislike  of  parade  and  show,  of  figuring  at 
reviews  and  attending  military  pageants,  is  well 
known.  He  always  avoids  them  when  it  is  pos- 
sible. His  almost  feminine  timidity  and  ner- 
vousness have  long  been  remarked.  There  have 
been  many  incidents  of  his  life  which  indicate 
that  personal  courage  is  not  one  of  his  conspic- 
uous traits.  The  various  attempts  which  have 
been  made  upon  his  life  have  shattered  his  com- 
posure, and  rendered  him  a  constant  prey  to  the 
dread  of  sudden  and  violent  death.  Sometimes 
this  dread  has  so  haunted  him  as  to  well-nigh 
deprive  him  of  reason.  He  is  a  confirmed  hypo- 
chondriac. It  is  very  rarely  that  a  smile  flits 
across  his  handsome,  but  most  melancholy  coun- 
tenance.    This  sadness  of  feature  is  greatly  in- 


THREE   EMPERORS.  229 

creased  of  late ;  at  sixty-three,  he  looks  seventy. 
His  once  rich  brown  hair,  and  military  mustache 
and  whiskers,  are  thin,  shaggy,  and  gray;  deep 
lines,  as  of  care  and  sorrow,  cross  his  face ;  his 
air  is  that  of  a  man  long  hunted,  and  desper- 
ately weary  of  being  hunted.  Uneasy,  indeed, 
lies  at  least  this  head  that  wears  the  proud 
crown  of  Rurick.  Perhaps  there  is  no  more  un- 
happy man  in  all  Russia  than  its  ruler.  There 
is  more  than  one  cause  for  the  miserable  exist- 
ence which,  in  sombre  contrast  with  the  hearty 
enjoyment  of  life  and  of  majesty  experienced 
by  the  German  Emperor,  is  led  by  the  mighty 
potentate  of  Russia.  Time  was  when  the  motto 
of  every  Russian  was,  "  My  life  for  the  Czar !  " 
His  person  was  sacred,  as  his  will  was  law. 
But  the  times  have  changed.  The  vast,  occult 
conspiracy  of  Nihilism  has  literally  turned  thou- 
sands of  Russian  hands  against  the  heart  of  him 
who  is  their  Pope  as  well  as  their  sovereign. 
His  despotism  is  in  these  days  more  than  ever 
"  tempered  by  assassination."  The  Czar  lives 
daily  in  just  terror  of  secret  conspiracy.  Death 
may  lurk  in  his  food,  beneath  the  floor  of  his 
palace,  in  the  very  letters  he  opens,  behind  the 
curtains  of  his  bed.    The  effect  of  this  perpet- 


230  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

ual  threat,  at  all  hours  and  in  all  places,  upon 
a  finely  strung,  nervous,  timid,  sensitive  organ- 
ization as  is  that  of  the  Czar,  may  be  imagined. 
But,  aside  from  this  Damocles'  sword,  forever 
suspended  above  his  head,  the  Czar  is  tortured 
by  the  unruly  conduct  of  his  son  and  heir,  a 
young  man  in  whom  is  revived  the  old,  rough, 
fierce,  overbearing,  warlike  spirit  of  the  haughty 
house  of  Romanoff.  He  is  perplexed  by  the 
clamors  of  his  nobles ;  he  is  driven  into  courses 
from  which  he  is  averse,  by  the  powerful  "  Old 
Russia"  party;  the  cares  of  government  press 
heavily  upon  him ;  the  chief  joy  of  his  life,  his 
only  daughter,  lives  in  a  distant  and  unfriendly 
country;  his  feeble  health  is  an  almost  constant 
torment. 

The  resources  and  tastes  of  the  Czar  happily 
in  some  degree  mitigate  the  darker  aspects  and 
influences  of  his  life.  He  is  polished  and  schol- 
arly, fond  of  books,  enjoys  best  of  all  the  hours 
when  he  is  left  in  solitude  and  quiet,  in  the  midst 
of  his  family,  in  his  library,  and  amid  the  luxu- 
rious retreats  which  it  is  one  of  the  few  privi- 
leges of  his  rank  to  possess.  When  out  of  sight 
of  the  world,  and  among  trusted  friends,  he  loses 
something  of  his  melancholy,  and  enters  into  the 


THREE  EMPERORS.  23 1 

pastime  of  the  hour  with  gentle  zest.  His  man- 
ners, while  grave  and  quiet,  are  not  dignified. 
He  quite  lacks  the  hauteur  of  his  father  Nicho- 
las. There  is,  however,  a  certain  kindliness  in 
his  bearing  which  wins  the  hearts  of  those  who 
are  permitted  to  approach  near  enough  to  dis- 
cover his  real  self.  "  He  produces  the  impres- 
sion," says  an  English  writer  who  has  often  seen 
him,  "  that  one  would  like  to  know  him  better, 
if  only  he  were  not  an  Emperor.  There  is  some- 
thing extremely  sympathetic  about  him."  Alex- 
ander is  not  devoid  entirely  of  a  taste  for  the 
robust  sports  of  his  hardy  northern  land.  He  is 
fond  of  a  good  horse ;  and  until  within  a  few 
years  was  somewhat  noted  as  a  huntsman,  hav- 
ing achieved  much  success  in  the  hunting  of 
bears.  But  in  these  days,  to  go  hunting  would 
be  to  add  to  the  chances  of  assassination.  Not 
many  years  ago,  one  of  the  Czar's  favorite  pas- 
times was  to  walk,  almost  or  quite  unattended, 
through  the  streets  of  his  capital,  or  in  the  gar- 
dens surrounding  his  palace.  This,  too,  he  has 
given  up,  since  the  repeated  attempts  upon  his 
life.  More  and  more  each  year  he  inclines  to 
the  seclusion  of  a  recluse.  His  sleep  is  uneasy 
and  troubled.     At  table   he  is   abstemious  and 


232  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

simple ;  it  is  only  on  the  occasion  of  a  state  din- 
ner that  the  Imperial  table  groans  with  the  good 
things  brought  to  the  ice-bound  capital  from 
southern  and  western  Europe.  He  seldom  stays 
long  in  the  brilliant  court  balls  which  ever  and 
anon  break  the  usual  solemn  silence  of  the  Win- 
ter Palace ;  and  his  visits  to  the  opera  become 
more  rare  every  year.  When  he  goes  out  now, 
it  is  in  his  carriage  or  drosky,  swiftly  driven, 
and  flanked  on  either  side  by  heavily  armed  and 
fierce-looking  mounted  Cossacks.  If  he  travels 
by  rail,  it  is  in  a  closely  shut  compartment,  and 
only  after  every  precaution  has  been  taken  to 
keep  the  track  clear  and  the  way  safe. 

During  his  long  and  eventful  reign,  the  Czar 
Alexander  has  many  times  shown  his  desire, 
even  his  anxiety,  to  confer  solid  benefits  upon 
his  people.  This  inclination,  indeed,  appeared 
almost  immediately  after  he  ascended  the  throne. 
Unlike  Nicholas,  his  disposition  was  liberal  and 
magnanimous ;  it  was  perhaps  the  observation 
of  his  father's  unbending  cruelty  and  remorse- 
less rule,  that  actuated  him  to  diverge  so  soon 
and  so  completely  from  his  father's  policy.  He 
established  many  reforms  in  the  public  adminis- 
tration during  the  early  years  of  his  reign ;   and 


THREE  EMPERORS.  233 

thus  soon  won  that  hostiHty  of  the  nobles,  and 
of  the  warhke  and  arbitrary  "  old  Russia  "  party, 
which  has  been  kept  alive  ever  since.  He 
brought  about  improvements  in  the  system  of 
education  in  Russia,  and  freed  the  universities 
from  some  of  the  odious  restrictions  imposed  on 
them  by  Nicholas ;  he  relieved  the  military  pres- 
sure which  had  existed  over  civil  affairs ;  and  he 
abolished  the  most  irksome  laws  restricting  the 
Russian  press.  Towards  the  inveterately  discon- 
tented Poles  he  manifested  a  studied  gentleness 
and  leniency;  granting  a  universal  amnesty  in 
the  second  year  of  his  reign,  and  removing  many 
of  the  despotic  measures  that  weighed  upon  the 
unhappy  subject  kingdom.  Then  came  the 
noblest  of  all  his  acts,  —  an  act  which  must  pre- 
serve for  him  a  loftier  and  sweeter  renown  than 
attaches  to  the  name  of  any  other  Russian 
autocrat.  Suddenly,  without  consultation  with 
family  or  nobles,  he  struck  the  shackles  from  the 
swarming  millions  of  serfs  who  toiled  beneath 
the  yoke  of  the  proud,  cruel,  and  indolent  Rus- 
sian landed  proprietors.  To  be  sure,  this  eman- 
cipation was  far  from  complete ;  nay,  is  not  by 
any  means  complete  to  this  day.  But  it  was 
nevertheless  a  bold  and  grand  act,  the  outcome 


234  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

of  a  lofty  impulse ;  and  it  may  be  fairly  said 
that  as  far  as  it  lay  in  the  Czar  Alexander's 
power  to  do  it,  the  whole  body  of  Russian  serf- 
dom was  made  free. 

The  later  features  of  his  reign,  unfortunately, 
have  not  sustained  its  wise  and  brave  beginnings. 
The  attempts  upon  his  life,  the  rise  and  formi- 
dable growth  of  Nihilism,  the  influence  of  strong 
wills  like  that  of  Gortschakoff  and  of  grand 
dukes  and  despotic  nobles,  acting  upon  a  ner- 
vous and  unhappy  temperament,  have  resulted  in 
inducing  Alexander  too  often  to  resort  to  the 
old,  hard,  cruel  methods  of  his  predecessors. 
The  press  has  again  become  the  slave  of  rigid 
censorship  ;  Siberia  once  more  receives  her  mis- 
erable quota  of  victims  year  by  year ;  the  Poles 
feel,  as  of  old,  the  terrors  of  the  quiet  that  reigns, 
under  Russian  bayonets,  at  Warsaw;  and  the 
great  cities  scarcely  breathe,  under  the  oppres- 
sion of  the  stern  martial  law  which  has  been 
proclaimed  over  them.  The  Czar  seems,  indeed, 
in  these  latter  days,  quite  powerless,  autocrat  as 
he  is,  to  do  those  things  for  his  people  which  his 
own  liberal  and  generous  impulses  would  natu- 
rally prompt;  and  we  can  scarcely  conceive  of 
a  more  wretched   situation  than  that  of  a  well- 


THREE  EMPERORS.  235 

disposed  arbitrary  monarch,  who  finds  himself 
responsible  for  all  the  oppressions  and  injustices 
that  are  done  to  his  people,  and  yet  who  is  un- 
able to  lift  his  hand  to  protect  them  from  it. 

The  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  of  Austria  is  a 
good  and  wise  sovereign,  and  an  amiable  and 
high-minded  gentleman.  No  living  European 
ruler  more  thoroughly  deserves  the  affections  of 
his  subjects  and  the  respect  of  the  world.  Al- 
though only  fifty  years  of  age,  he  has  reigned 
thirty-two  years ;  and  those  years  have  been  full 
of  vicissitude,  turmoil,  misfortune,  and  struggle 
with  him.  His  task  has  been  more  difficult  than 
that  of  any  other  European  potentate;  and  he 
has  acquitted  it  with  a  degree  of  judgment,  tact, 
sincere  patriotism,  and  patience,  which  stamp 
him  as  one  of  the  most  able  hereditary  govern- 
ors of  men  now  living.  Called  to  rule  over  a 
polyglot  empire,  composed  of  five  or  six  different 
and  mutually  jealous  races,  each  pulling  against 
the  others,  each  clamoring  for  that  which  it  was 
contrary  to  the  interests  of  the  others  to  con- 
cede, his  course  has  been  through  the  most  dan- 
gerous passes  and  channels,  amid  constantly 
confronting  perils.  If  he  yielded  to  the  de- 
mands of  the  Czechs,  he  offended  the  Germans ; 


236  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

if  German  influence  was  uppermost  in  his  coun- 
cils, Hungary  was  rebellious.  Besides  these  in- 
ternal perplexities,  he  had  the  hereditary  exter- 
nal complications  and  quarrels  of  the  Empire  on 
his  hands.  It  was  his  task  to  maintain  the  posi- 
tion of  Austria  as  a  great  power;  to  make  exi- 
gent alliances,  at  times  to  enter  into  wars  from 
which  he  emerged  discomfited,  beaten,  and  de- 
prived of  territories.  Amid  all  these  troubles, 
the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  has  borne  himself 
with  dignity,  prudence,  self-control,  and,  more 
than  once,  with  a  fine  spirit  of  self-sacrifice, 
when  his  prerogatives  as  a  monarch  were  to  be 
restricted  and  lessened  for  the  benefit  of  his 
subjects. 

Francis  Joseph  is  perhaps  the  only  potentate 
who  has  passed  from  the  position  of  a  despot 
into  that  of  a  constitutional  sovereign,  without 
being  forced  to  do  so  by  actual  revolution.  It 
is  to  his  eternal  honor  that  he  has  cheerfully 
and  loyally  given  constitutional  freedom  to  all 
his  subjects ;  that  under  his  beneficent  sway, 
Austria  to-day  enjoys  a  degree  of  political  and 
social  liberty  which  places  her  far  in  the  van  of 
her  sister  empires  of  Russia  and  Germany.  The 
wisdom  of  his  self-abnegating  policy  is  seen  in 


THREE  EMPERORS.  237 

the  comparative  content  in  which  the  diverse 
populations  of  Austro-Hungary  now  dwell  to- 
gether. Hungary,  once  stormily  insurgent,  is 
the  most  loyal  of  his  Imperial  dominions,  the 
strongest  support  to  his  throne.  Francis  Joseph 
has  pursued  this  enlightened  course  with  great 
firmness  and  steadfastness,  against  formidable 
obstacles.  His  family,  the  court,  his  noble 
counsellors,  have  often  urgently  opposed  the 
conciliatory  steps  which  he  has  nevertheless 
boldly  taken.  With  conspicuous  magnanimity, 
he  accepted  as  his  chancellor  the  Hungarian 
Count  Andrassy,  upon  whose  head  the  Emperor 
himself  had  once  been  obliged  to  set  a  price,  as 
a  traitor  and  rebel.  When  he  went  to  Pesth  to 
be  crowned  King  of  Hungary  with  the  ancient 
iron  diadem,  he  visited  the  stubborn  old  patriot, 
Francis  Deak,  in  his  garret,  and  urged  him  —  in 
vain  —  to  accept  the  marked  favors  which  it  is 
the  privilege  of  royalty  to  bestow.  His  treat- 
ment of  Italy,  who  took  from  him  some  of  his 
fairest  provinces,  has  been  exceedingly  gener- 
ous and  friendly;  his  relations  with  other  po- 
tentates have  always  seemed  to  be  seized  by 
Francis  Joseph  as  opportunities  to  maintain  the 
peace  of  Europe.      Never  once,  since  Austria 


238  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

became  a  constitutional  state,  has  he  evinced 
any  restiveness  under  the  new  condition,  or  any 
desire  to  return  to  arbitrary  methods.  Yet  in 
his  veins  courses  the  blood  of  the  haughty 
Hapsburgs,  —  the  proudest,  crudest,  most  de- 
spotic race  of  monarchs,  on  the  whole,  who  have 
ever  held  sway  in  Europe,  unless  we  except  the 
half-barbarous  descendants  of  Othman  and  the 
second  Mahomet,  Nor  is  Francis  Joseph  less 
proud  than  his  Imperial  successors.  It  must 
have  deeply  wounded  him  to  lose,  first  Milan 
and  Lombardy,  and  then,  seven  years  later,  his 
still  fairer  appanage  of  Venice ;  to  see  the  con- 
quering legions  of  Prussia  encamping  on  his 
Bohemian  fields ;  to  concede  constitutional  lib- 
erty to  that  truculent  and  restless  Hungary  which 
came  near  despoiling  him  of  his  crown  almost 
as  soon  as  it  had  been  placed  upon  his  head. 
Unlike  the  Bourbons,  however,  he  has  proved 
himself  able  and^  willing  to  learn  the  lessons 
taught  by  repeated  misfortune.  In  a  better  and 
higher  sense,  therefore,  than  the  term  can  be 
applied  to  the  Emperor  William,  Francis  Joseph 
has  been  "  the  father  of  his  people;  "  sacrificing 
his  pride  and  his  power  for  their  sake. 

In  person,  Francis  Joseph  is  of  medium  height, 


THREE  EMPERORS.  239 

slim,  erect,  and  with  a  graceful  bearing.  His 
reddish  brown  hair  is  scant  on  the  crown,  the 
bareness  of  which  gives  an  appearance  of  un- 
usual size  to  the  high,  round  forehead.  The 
hair  is  always  cropped  as  close  to  the  round 
head  as  is  the  fashion  with  our  college  youth  in 
summer  time.  The  face  is  a  long,  well-filled- 
out  oval ;  each  cheek  is  covered  with  very  heavy 
and  long  reddish  brown  whiskers,  which  fall 
almost  to  the  breast.  The  Emperor  has  the 
true  protruding  "  Hapsburg  lip,"  which  has 
been  a  marked  peculiarity  of  the  Austrian  sov- 
ereigns for  many  generations ;  but  it  is  almost 
concealed  by  a  long  sweeping  military  mustache, 
the  ends  of  which  are  brushed  jauntily  upward. 
The  chin  is  round  and  handsome ;  the  nose 
straight  and  strong;  the  large  dark  gray  eyes 
are  grave  and  serious,  but  not  unkindly  in  ex- 
pression. So,  too,  his  bearing  is  always  full  of 
sedateness  and  quiet  dignity,  by  no  means  ob- 
trusively haughty,  his  imperial  rank  sitting  easily 
and  naturally  upon  him.  Unlike  the  Czar,  he  is 
by  no  means  fond  of  solitude,  but  like  the  Czar, 
he  has  little  taste  for  state  pageantry  or  court 
festivities.  He  used  to  be  fond  of  the  theatre 
and  the  opera,  but  in  these  latter  days  is  rarely 


240  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

seen  at  the  Vienna  places  of  amusement.  He 
has  a  positive  liking  for  the  details  of  govern- 
ment. The  greater  part  of  his  day  is  spent  in 
official  work.  His  favorite  companions  are  his 
political  servants.  He  makes  himself  familiar 
with  every  branch  of  administrative  labor ;  per- 
haps there  is  no  man  in  his  dominions  more 
thoroughly  conversant  with  their  political  and 
social  condition.  When  Count  Von  Beust,  the 
Protestant  Saxon,  became  Chancellor  of  Austria, 
it  was  the  Emperor  who  "  crammed "  him  on 
the  state  of  the  realm,  and  instructed  him  in  the 
duties  he  had  just  assumed.  His  watchful  eye 
embraces  the  needs  of  all  his  subjects.  Reign- 
ing now  under  constitutional  forms,  there  is  yet 
no  doubt  that  there  is  no  more  weighty  voice  in 
the  Imperial  councils  than  that  of  their  chief 
member.  It  was  undoubtedly  his  personal  in- 
fluence, pitted  against  the  general  voice  of  his 
advisers,  that  restrained  Austria  from  going  to 
war  in  alliance  with  France  against  Prussia  in 
1870;   and  a  very  wise  restraint  it  was. 

Francis  Joseph  is  one  of  the  few  great  princes 
of  Europe  against  whom  scandal  has  never 
breathed  a  suspicion  of  immorality.  From  early 
youth  to  the  present  hour  his  reputation  has  been 


THREE   EMPERORS.  24 1 

morally  stainless.  His  life  has  been  pure,  sim- 
ple, self-controlled.  He  has  been  a  true  and 
faithful  husband  to  the  most  beautiful  princess 
in  Europe;  a  good,  affectionate,  and  judicious 
father  to  children  of  whose  promising  qualities 
he  has  every  reason  to  be  proud.  He  told  his 
son  and  heir,  Rudolph,  that  he  should  never  be 
compelled  to  marry  for  reasons  of  state,  or  to 
secure  a  brilliant  alliance;  but  in  the  matter  of 
marriage,  should  follow  the  inclinations  of  his 
own  heart.  The  father  himself  had  set  this  ex- 
ample. His  union  with  the  Princess  Elizabeth 
of  Bavaria  was  a  love  match,  and  brought  Fran- 
cis Joseph  no  other  advantage  than  a  happy  and 
harmonious  wedded  life  and  domestic  circle. 
The  Emperor  is  abstemious  and  moderate,  fond 
of  simple  food,  and  regular  and  methodical  in 
his  habits.  He  is  little  addicted  to  out-of-door 
sports,  and  is  emphatically  a  "  home  body."  So 
virtuous  and  clean  a  life  is  seldom  to  be  found 
in  palaces.  Francis  Joseph  has  waxed  in  popu- 
larity as  his  reign  has  lengthened,  until  now  there 
is  probably  no  living  sovereign  held  more  affec- 
tionately in  the  hearts  of  his  subjects.  His  hand 
is  always  ready  to  give  out  of  the  abundance  of 
his  economically  kept  wealth  in  deeds  of  quiet 
i6 


242  CERTAIN  MEN  OF  MARK. 

charity.  Truly,  if  the  nations  must  still  have 
hereditary  rulers,  and  if  their  destinies  must  yet 
for  a  while  be  swayed  somewhat  by  the  accident 
of  individual  birth,  theirs  is  good  fortune  to 
which  that  accident  gives  them  such  monarchs 
as  now  reign  in  Austria  and  Germany. 


University  Press :   John  Wilson  &  Son,  Cambridge. 


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